Numerical Innovations - Help Center

I get some technical help on this ? I ran FAB 3000 and I have problem with paneling, my Gerber file layers include fab drawings, and it keeps wanting to panel the whole thing instead of the actual board, which is at 1/10 of the size.

FAB 3000 uses hierarchy to perform Panelization; essentially the Panel just contains "inserted jobs" (i.e reference to the existing job).  This means whatever objects are in the inserted job are now part of the panel.  Your panel looks fine, and this is really just a cosmetic issue.  I have two suggestions to resolve this:

1.  EASIEST.   Ignore/hide the FAB drawing layers by turning them off in FAB 3000 (repeat with any other documentation or non-essential layers).  When you're ready to export your panel to Gerber, ODB++, etc. make sure to not export the FAB drawing layers and you'll be fine.  You can still send original FAB drawing Gerber along with your panelized Gerbers.


2.  MEDIUM.  Every board shop that performs panelization will "delete" all unnecessary objects from the customer gerbers (like Fab drawing, documentation, title blocks, etc.) and only the essential board layers will remain -- this is what a board shop CAM person will call a "1UP" (a 1UP is a single job that contains only one PCB with just the required layers and is ready for panelization).  The easiest way to remove unnecessary layers is to use the command "Delete Layers..." (menu: Edit / Layers / Delete Layers...).  You can also select any objects and use "Delete" (menu: Edit / Delete)

Let me know if that helps, and feel free to ask any other questions -- I'm happy to help.

Best regards,
Simon