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I seem to be having some problems with the drill file format.
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[QUOTE]Another question: I seem to be having some problems with the drill
file format (see attached zip file for gerber and drill files, and pdf
file used to generate them).
In particular, there is something strange with the scale. Using
"gerbv", the holes are not displayed at the correct place. Using
"GC-Prevue", the holes are also displayed incorrectly. In "GC-Prevue",
if I manged to get the holes at the right place by changing the "whole
digits"/"decimal digits" to 3.4 instead of the default 4.3, but this
seems non standard.
When I upload my files to the eurocircuits server (our manufacturer),
their server gives me a warning about the scale and offset being
different in the drill and copper layers (see attached screenshot). It
seems to try to correct for this, and is partially successful, but
afterwards, the board outline is not calculated properly in their
system.
Is it possible to match the scale settings in the gerber and drill
files? In particular, it would be nice if it would display properly
using "gerbv", it would give me faith that the output files are
relatively standard.
(I could not find any settings for the drill file in the software.) [/QUOTE]
I can assure you, ACE outputs the Gerber & Drill files using the exact same coordinate system (as we have not added any feature to purposely make ACE output Gerber/Drill files with different coordinates that do not align). It would be the "exact same" units, digits, etc. that you assigned from the gerber files itself.
Note: Gerber data has the "zero suppression, digits, etc" embedded into the file header itself, while drill data does not; so it is up to the Gerber viewer software to guess those digits (unless the user has implicitly entered them during import). While I think gerbv is an excellent free tool I don't believe they have option that allows you to manually choose "zero suppression, digits, etc" for drill data (during import) - so importing may not always be optimal.
Note: The reason you see 4.3 digits from GC-Prevue is that GC-Prevue is just guessing what it thinks the drill digits are (since there is nothing in the drill which tells it what digits to use). Here's a tutorial movie showing me convert the PDF and then load both gerbers and drill in GC-Prevue:
http://screencast.com/t/vvVuTdq8Dlkk
Note: Here's a quick video showing me load your Gerber/Drill.
http://screencast.com/t/sJ1kkgwuE
Thus you have outputted the Gerber & Drill correctly. The problem is getting the Gerber viewer (in this case GC-Prevue), and EuroCiruits to accept them - so you must specific tell them the drill digits. The main problem is that Drill data format used by PCB manufacturers is so old (early 1980's). Trust me, every PCB designer in the world has at one-time had issues getting their PCB data (drill/Gerber) to manufacturing.
Hopefully you should be fine, and please let me know if you have any other questions.
Best regards,
Simon
file format (see attached zip file for gerber and drill files, and pdf
file used to generate them).
In particular, there is something strange with the scale. Using
"gerbv", the holes are not displayed at the correct place. Using
"GC-Prevue", the holes are also displayed incorrectly. In "GC-Prevue",
if I manged to get the holes at the right place by changing the "whole
digits"/"decimal digits" to 3.4 instead of the default 4.3, but this
seems non standard.
When I upload my files to the eurocircuits server (our manufacturer),
their server gives me a warning about the scale and offset being
different in the drill and copper layers (see attached screenshot). It
seems to try to correct for this, and is partially successful, but
afterwards, the board outline is not calculated properly in their
system.
Is it possible to match the scale settings in the gerber and drill
files? In particular, it would be nice if it would display properly
using "gerbv", it would give me faith that the output files are
relatively standard.
(I could not find any settings for the drill file in the software.) [/QUOTE]
I can assure you, ACE outputs the Gerber & Drill files using the exact same coordinate system (as we have not added any feature to purposely make ACE output Gerber/Drill files with different coordinates that do not align). It would be the "exact same" units, digits, etc. that you assigned from the gerber files itself.
Note: Gerber data has the "zero suppression, digits, etc" embedded into the file header itself, while drill data does not; so it is up to the Gerber viewer software to guess those digits (unless the user has implicitly entered them during import). While I think gerbv is an excellent free tool I don't believe they have option that allows you to manually choose "zero suppression, digits, etc" for drill data (during import) - so importing may not always be optimal.
Note: The reason you see 4.3 digits from GC-Prevue is that GC-Prevue is just guessing what it thinks the drill digits are (since there is nothing in the drill which tells it what digits to use). Here's a tutorial movie showing me convert the PDF and then load both gerbers and drill in GC-Prevue:
http://screencast.com/t/vvVuTdq8Dlkk
Note: Here's a quick video showing me load your Gerber/Drill.
http://screencast.com/t/sJ1kkgwuE
Thus you have outputted the Gerber & Drill correctly. The problem is getting the Gerber viewer (in this case GC-Prevue), and EuroCiruits to accept them - so you must specific tell them the drill digits. The main problem is that Drill data format used by PCB manufacturers is so old (early 1980's). Trust me, every PCB designer in the world has at one-time had issues getting their PCB data (drill/Gerber) to manufacturing.
Hopefully you should be fine, and please let me know if you have any other questions.
Best regards,
Simon
Numerical Support Team