I don’t see any difference between the rectangles that behaved, and the ones that morphed into SMT pads (or whatever) at the PCB fab. None of the Gerber viewers thus far, nor BatchPCB’s DRC upload layer previews indicated an issue with the rectangles in question. I don’t think 1.5MB Gerbers are in any way too complicated for the fab.
I would like to know why this happened, and more importantly, how to prevent this from turning PCBs into coasters in the future.
“O” The other six boards ordered thus far have NOT displayed this random rectangle morphing characteristic. They all consist of custom ground planes constructed with rectangles and “wires”.
EagleCAD>Viewplot1.5 check> BatchPCB… The faulty boards will serve as case mounting templates (Mechanical test dummies).
EDIT; For some clarity for the people without a lot of time to stare at the above pictures. The red highlighted solder mask voids are a problem, and the Yellow ones just don’t belong in the bottom solder mask.
I couldn’t see the problem at first, and had to stare at it for a couple of minutes - the area in the top LH corner is obviously one of them. Very strange!
Yes, Very Strange barley covers it. When the boards arrived Saturday (12DEC2009), these rectangles were all over the bottom of ALL the boards from that purchase from BatchPCB. :shock:
At first, I Was Livid, that some one at the fab had the audacity to deface the board that I spent the better part of seven months working on. - I’m somewhat over that now. However the issue of not being sure of what I order will be what I get, still remains.
Every single tool I have here including a host of on-line Gerber checkers indicate those rectangles in the solder mask do NOT belong there. :?
If this just happens at random at BatchPCB’s fab, there is a serious failure somewhere that Needs to be Addressed Immediately before any more boards are ruined. If this is a rectangle setting in Eagle that changes at random, I need to know about it so it can be manually forced to the correct setting.
zarcondeegrissom:
Yes, Very Strange barley covers it. When the boards arrived Saturday (12DEC2009), these rectangles were all over the bottom of ALL the boards from that purchase from BatchPCB. :shock:
At first, I Was Livid, that some one at the fab had the audacity to deface the board that I spent the better part of seven months working on. - I’m somewhat over that now. However the issue of not being sure of what I order will be what I get, still remains.
Every single tool I have here including a host of on-line Gerber checkers indicate those rectangles in the solder mask do NOT belong there. :?
If this just happens at random at BatchPCB’s fab, there is a serious failure somewhere that Needs to be Addressed Immediately before any more boards are ruined. If this is a rectangle setting in Eagle that changes at random, I need to know about it so it can be manually forced to the correct setting.
I do have a question.
Did you do anything to the gerbers after they were output?
I just wondered if you panelized them or anything similar. I have seen some wierd things happen when dealing with gerbers. It is an unforgiving format.
It is a concern that you had a problem. I would email BatchPCB directly and tell them of your problem.
I hope the problem can be found.
EDIT: Also, make sure to turn on all layers in Eagle. There maybe something there you may not see if all the layers are not on. I never have gerbers which are over a few hundred Kb (that is for panelized boards as well). I’m not sure what would make gerbers so large, but I suspect a problem with gerbers containing that much information (unless the boards are huge, or maybe a huge amount of arcs).
understood. lots of arcs, grounded coplanar waveguides (GCPW)[oops], and stuff. ALL editing was done in Eagle before exporting to Gerber.
Eagle, exported with sparkfun’s “sfe-gerb274x.cam” job thingy. copied the magic seven files to new folder, and then zipped them. uploaded the zip. viewing the gerbers with Viewplot was from the original seven that got zipped in the separate folder.
The thumbs on the upload page of each layer, matched what was supposed to be there. so the uploads were good.
zarcondeegrissom:
understood. lots of arcs, CWG’s, and stuff. ALL editing was done in Eagle before exporting to Gerber.
Eagle, exported with sparkfun’s “sfe-gerb274x.cam” job thingy. copied the magic seven files to new folder, and then zipped them. uploaded the zip. viewing the gerbers with Viewplot was from the original seven that got zipped in the separate folder.
The thumbs on the upload page of each layer, matched what was supposed to be there. so the uploads were good.
Wow…that is very straight forward, nothing unusual there.
I think it is time to wait and see what BatchPCB says. They will probably contact the vendor to see if there were problems with the gerbers. Sounds like a small manufacturing glitch. I’m sure they will make it right, they always have by me. I don’t use them much anymore, but do use the vendor for a lot of PCB’s.
zarcondeegrissom:
In the words of John Sheppard form Stargate Atlantis;
Oh, that’s what you call a “glitch,” huh?!
lol
Well, I do own an assembly business (well a partner in one), and even though it may seem like a major issue for you, it is a minor problem in their process. It depends on which side of the “fence” you stand as the seriousness of the situation.
Most manufacturers do take problems like your’s seriously. But the only thing they can do at this point is try again.
But at least you haven’t lost your sense of humor.
It is hard to do all of the actions in the background and have it be 100% success all the time (like never).
I’m sure BatchPCB will make up for the problem. I just can’t say how long it will be until they respond to your email (be sure to send them one).
unfortunately, I don’t have endless funds to dump into reordering boards forever in the hops that Something somewhere goes correct enough for me to solder the thing by hand.
If eight of the errors were not so close to where I need to put my soldering iron, I’d go with it. It is after all, on the bottom of the board only.
Hopefully there is a fix for this, so others don’t have to enjoy the confusion I am in over this. I’ve yet to find any explanation regarding this, let alone a cure.
Do I risk moving on to the display board for my little project, dose the mane board’s ground-plane need to be reworked, or do I cut my losses and call it quits? I’ll wait for the email reply from Sparkfun/batchpcb. I figured some one here might have already been threw this, and new what to do…
zarcondeegrissom:
unfortunately, I don’t have endless funds to dump into reordering boards forever in the hops that Something somewhere goes correct enough for me to solder the thing by hand.
If eight of the errors were not so close to where I need to put my soldering iron, I’d go with it. It is after all, on the bottom of the board only.
Hopefully there is a fix for this, so others don’t have to enjoy the confusion I am in over this. I’ve yet to find any explanation regarding this, let alone a cure.
Do I risk moving on to the display board for my little project, dose the mane board’s ground-plane need to be reworked, or do I cut my losses and call it quits? I’ll wait for the email reply from Sparkfun/batchpcb. I figured some one here might have already been threw this, and new what to do…
Don’t fret. I’m sure if you emailed Batch PCB directly (through the address on their website), they will fix it for free. It will take some time, but I have never had a board they didn’t fix.
The only issue here is the time it will take. They will need to put the design on a panel, and run it with others.
Don’t wait on a response from here. You definitely need to email them directly. I know they monitor this forum, but they check their email a lot more frequently.
they did respond with a email q about what soldermask voids in question. I responded to them yesterday morning. I assumed they were also looking at gerber-viewers rather then what arrived. Waiting on a response as to what happened. it may take some time to figure this one out.
again. I figured some one here might have already been threw this, and new what to do to fix the errors…
zarcondeegrissom:
they did respond with a email q about what soldermask voids in question. I responded to them yesterday morning. I assumed they were also looking at gerber-viewers rather then what arrived. Waiting on a response as to what happened. it may take some time to figure this one out.
again. I figured some one here might have already been threw this, and new what to do to fix the errors…
Yes, you did say that, but I didn’t really catch it.
I have seen some weird stuff on here from problems through BatchPCB, but I think you are the first to mention the specific problem of having the rectangles like what you show. There may have been someone who didn’t mention it, so you are correct posting here to see if anyone has ever had that problem.
If you have already done some conversing with BatchPCB, then you are already miles ahead.
If someone else has had these types of problems, I hope they do speak up.
So, after looking at this for a while now, I can see that there was an error by the manufacturer. I’m not sure why this has happened and it seems very strange that they would just add pads for no reason. I think something must have gone wrong when they imported the files into their system. Unfortunately since the manufacturer is on a break there is nobody currently working in the office to answer this question on why the pads were added. Very frustrating. Do not lose faith in the manufacturer we use them for all of Sparkfun’s pcb’s, sometimes mistakes happen, I assure you nothing is intentional.
I didn’t think this was intentional after the initial shock wore off, and I realized the errors matched rectangles in the GBL shortly there after. I did find it odd the usual order/lot/whatever number was no where to be found on the PCB’s, or were they labeled that well. lol
I should mention I was impressed with the turnaround time on the first attempt. Well every one is going on break, and “propellanttech” also wanted to see the Gerbers to try out some PCB viewer. I’m hoping for good news. BatchPCB is trying another run on the PCB’s, Hopefully the second time is a charm. That said, If I don’t see y’all before then. Happy holidays, and new year.
P.S. if this is a bug with importing the files into their system, it would be really nice to know how to avoid triggering the bug in the future (If that is at all possible from within Eagle). I wonder if I have an outdated “sfe-gerb274x.cam” file(Another thread if it is not already here somewhere)? 163k EaglePCBfile → 1.52MB gerbers??? :?
