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I could use some help to produce an NC Drill file from a PDF.

[QUOTE]I could use some help to produce an NC Drill file from a PDF.

I am converting an Autocad 2004 PCB drawing to Gerber format for manufacture.
First I plot to a PDF, then use ACE translator 3000 V7 to convert to Gerber format.
I have been successful with the track file, but not the drill file.
To produce the drilling file, I first make a new Autocad drawing with just pads and an outline.
The pad blocks have been replaced with a circle of the required diameter: 0.9mm, 1mm, 3mm and 4mm. I plot it to a PDF called
I ran that through Ace Translater and select 'Flash Round/Donut Shapes', then click the 'Drill' box, and it produces 3 files: F-96OD2PCB Gerber Holes_pdf.dpt (327 Bytes), F-96OD2PCB Gerber Holes_pdf (51 bytes) which Windows describes as a 'DRL' file, and F-96OD2PCB Gerber Holes_pdf (1.97M) which windows describes as a 'GBR' file.

When loading the GBR file back into Ace Translater as a Gerber file, for inspection, I get whast looks like the original PDF with no solid holes. When I load the DRL file I get nothing, which is not surprising considering the tiny file size.

I have repeated this process many times and always get the same result.

Can you please tell me what I am doing wrong.[/QUOTE]

Thanks for sending a sample PDF. To generate Drill data, ACE must have "Flashed" Circles.  That PDF doesn't have good quality circles for generating Drill data (it looks like an uneven octagon -- see link below):
http://screencast.com/t/Ea8Uqh2jSfI

Note:  ACE can convert those octagon objects into flashed circles, by using the ACE 3000 Viewer command:  Tools | Convert To | Flash..
However it will take a bit of time to perform the editing.


If you have AutoCAD 2004 I would just recommend that you use ACE 3000 to convert your DWG (or DXF) directly to gerber and skip the PDF bottleneck.  Typically you want all your drill holes to be "Circles" and then during the export with ACE, you make sure to "Flash".  Here's a forum post showing how to convert an AutoCAD DXF to Drill.
http://forums.numericalinnovations.com/post/How-do-I-create-a-Drill-file-from-my-DXF-5122937?highlight=drill


Best regards,
Simon