I’m sorry to post such a newbie question, but I’ve searched the forums and the web and I can’t seem to find a solution.
I’ve designed my board in Eagle and output it according to the Eagle tutorial on the batchPCB site. When I open my file in gerbv, however, the drill file is scaled up by a factor of 10 (i.e. instead of holes being 0.1" apart, they’re 1" apart). I’ve tried manually editing the files, as well as editing the eagle.def file like I read in some forum posts here, but nothing seems to work.
When I uploaded my files to freedfm.com it found no errors, but I’m not sure exactly what they check. I’m wondering if this is a problem with my files, or with how gerbv is reading them, but since I’m using a Mac I don’t know of any other Gerber Viewer I could try.
From what I can tell gerbv is a fairly commonly used Gerber Viewer on *nix machines, and, as far as I can tell the only option on OS X; how do others get it to display the drill files correctly?
From what I can tell gerbv is a fairly commonly used Gerber Viewer on *nix machines, and, as far as I can tell the only option on OS X; how do others get it to display the drill files correctly?
Jonathan
Jonathan,
I’m sorry I mis-stated the problem.
By the looks of the file, the gerber is being exported without any leading/trailing zeros. If you notice there are not any decimal points in the listings. The gerber viewer is confused as to the nomenclature of the location.
Is the location (for example the first line after T01)
3513 inches x 2512 inches ? or
0.3513 inches x 0.2512 inches ? or
3.513 inches x 2.512 inches
as you can see all of these are worlds apart.
You didn’t say whether this file was inches or mm either.
Gerber viewers put the decimal in depending on the import parameters. There has to be options somewhere to choose how many places to the left and right of the decimal to expect.
I do not use Gerber Viewer for I am on a Windoze machine.
If I manually go in to my drd file and change all the “X3508Y2512” to “X0.3508Y0.2512” everything lines up prefectly in gerbv.
So, I guess my question now is, which do I submit to BatchPCB, the original output, or the modified one? I suspect it’s the original output, since that is what’s generated by BatchPCB’s own Eagle CAM file.
I know they mention something about the leading and trailing zeros when uploading; should I just choose the “Eagle” option and the good folks on the other end will figure it out?
And I’d still love to know how to tell gerbv to display the unmodified file properly, if there’s anyone out there using it.
If I manually go in to my drd file and change all the “X3508Y2512” to “X0.3508Y0.2512” everything lines up prefectly in gerbv.
So, I guess my question now is, which do I submit to BatchPCB, the original output, or the modified one? I suspect it’s the original output, since that is what’s generated by BatchPCB’s own Eagle CAM file.
I know they mention something about the leading and trailing zeros when uploading; should I just choose the “Eagle” option and the good folks on the other end will figure it out?
And I’d still love to know how to tell gerbv to display the unmodified file properly, if there’s anyone out there using it.
Jonathan,
Becareful about submitting an order and “expecting them to work it out”.
The Batch PCB bot doesn’t show via holes, but it will show a regular drill hole. If you want to know if the drill file is correct, put a regular drill hole somwhere on your board, and submit it to the bot. It will return a PNG file with the regular holed located in the spot it suspects it should go. If it is not correct, you should start tracing down the problem.
This is a pretty good test to see if your files work out right for the bot.
I’m glad you posted that. I had just patched my version of gerbv, which got rid of the problem. I uploaded my design, got the all-clear from the bot, and had just assumed that drill holes weren’t shown in the image file. Now I’ll try playing around more.
Edit: Is it possible that it’s showing a “keep-out” layer, which I’m not using?
I have always put mounting holes in all of my boards (haven’t ordered lately though) and the plain drill holes show up on the PNG’s I receive.
Holes do not show up on things like vias that have other layers associated with them. Note that I do not have any type of power or ground plane on the board…and that will make a difference.
Here is an example that I have converted to jpg and resized.
Hmm… I wish I knew how to get them to show up, but when I emailed the BatchPCB support they said that the bot doesn’t actually look at the drill files, so I don’t know where the data in your files is coming from. They said that as long as it passed the test, it should be good to go. Still, I’d love to have that nice-looking preview picture, if I could figure out how to get it!
A. Square:
Hmm… I wish I knew how to get them to show up, but when I emailed the BatchPCB support they said that the bot doesn’t actually look at the drill files, so I don’t know where the data in your files is coming from. They said that as long as it passed the test, it should be good to go. Still, I’d love to have that nice-looking preview picture, if I could figure out how to get it!
The bot used to send one back…I haven’t ordered in a while…actually a long time…maybe it doesn’t do that any more.
I’ll try and submit an order and post my results.
EDIT: Just tried it…and got a nice email containing a PNG file with the nicest picture contained. (Jonathan…you may want to check your email spam settings)
Sorry, this time I didn’t explain myself well: I get the picture in my email, but the drill holes don’t show up. I sent an email to BatchPCB support asking if this meant there was a problem with my drill file, and they said no:
Our bot doesn’t always give correct outputs. Since it doesn’t actually look at the drill file, it doesn’t always give accurate photos. If it passed the test, then it should be good to go.
So, what I was wondering is why your drill files show up in the preview and mine don’t.
The ‘drill holes’ you’re seeing are actually just lack of any layer being drawn. The bot does its “rendered” image by drawing a black background, drawing a copper layer, drawing a semi-transparent soldermask over it, and then drawing the silkscreen in white. In the areas where its black, there is just no other information to draw.
busonerd:
The ‘drill holes’ you’re seeing are actually just lack of any layer being drawn. The bot does its “rendered” image by drawing a black background, drawing a copper layer, drawing a semi-transparent soldermask over it, and then drawing the silkscreen in white. In the areas where its black, there is just no other information to draw.
Cheers,
–David Carne
David,
Ok…granted I can accept the point of a hole is the lack of anything else.
What I don’t understand, if we are both using Eagle…and both are doing 2 layer boards, why do not both of us see a hole, where a standard (not via or through hole) is located?
Sort of baffles the mind…I would figure my mounting holes would equate to his. (The lack of any layer in that area)
Hmmmmmm
[Edit]: I went back and checked…and I would like for you to do something (Jonathan). Would you check your Cam Processor for Spark Fun and see if the DRD file includes the drills and the holes?
propellanttech: [Edit]: I went back and checked…and I would like for you to do something (Jonathan). Would you check your Cam Processor for Spark Fun and see if the DRD file includes the drills and the holes?
Mine does.
Alright, mystery solved! The DRD file does include both the drills and the holes, however my holes layer was empty. When I added in a couple of holes manually, re-ran the CAM processor, and uploaded the result, the holes showed up on my preview.
So, is there a way to have Eagle automatically place holes where it places drills?
