A few BatchPCB questions

Archive BatchPCB
1

In looking at the FAQ, I could not find the answers to a few questions that I had. Those questions are:

  1. Can you get a PCB in a color other than green?

  2. Can you define your board’s dimension in EagleCAD’s “Dimension” layer?

  3. If you are getting multiple separate designs made at the same time, Do you have to pay the $10 setup fee once overall or once for each design?

Also, how large (square inches) are each of the panels that you have made? The size might affect Q #1, where I would add “If I buy an entire panel, could this option be available?”

Thanks for your help!

2

  1. No.

  2. You can define the dimension. I’ve never done it with the dimension layer. You can search this section and the PCB design section, defining the board outline has been discussed there. It should be outputted to the top silk layer.

  3. $10 is one fee per order.

If you want a whole panel, then you are defeating the whole purpose of BatchPCB. Go to a proper boardhouse for that. Batch PCB uses Gold Phoenix.

3

TheDirty:
You can define the dimension. I’ve never done it with the dimension layer. You can search this section and the PCB design section, defining the board outline has been discussed there. It should be outputted to the top silk layer.

Really? I've never used BatchPCB but I have used Gold Phoenix a bunch of times, and I always defined the board outlines in a separate Gerber file (in my case, generated from the "Keepout" layer in Protel). I remember this being discussed before, and others using BatchPCB had no problems defining the border with a separate file.

The problem with using the Silk layer is that a person (or computer) will have to interpret where the border actually is. Normally shouldn’t be a problem, but doesn’t seem as safe to me…

4

How do I indicate the shape of my board?

This is normally done with an outline layer, or a silkscreen layer. You can use any method you want but please use one! Something as simple as a rectangle on the top overlay (aka. silk) layer is great! Note: you can also make the outline in a copper layer (this is a trick mentioned in the SparkFun tutorial - but be sure the outline is at least 8mils thick! Otherwise the design will fail since the DRC doesn’t know that this is not a trace.

Multiple humans will be looking at your design and will let you know if we are unable to figure out the board shape. This may place your design on hold and cause added delays or it may result in you receiving a board that is not cut as you expected! So, an outline is strongly recommended.

5

Yes, I remember this discussion before, and some people said that they defined the border in a separate Gerber file with no problems. IMO, this is much better than using the silk or copper layer, as it is unambiguous, and also saves human effort when panelising.

I like to use Olimex if I only have a small numbers of boards, but it drives me crazy that they insist that the border must be defined on all copper layers, as well as the silkscreen. Since they use a guillotine to separate boards, this means you get small slivers of copper along the edges of boards, which is a real pain…