Gerbv cannot view .silk layer (unknown file type)

Community PCB Design
1

I’m trying to make sure my first PCB isn’t a complete disaster and am having trouble ensuring that my silkscreen layer will pass. I’ve used silk_gen.ulp to generate it and then edited it after (deleted some values and added a title to revision number to the board on the tsilk layer). I then run sparkfun’s cam file to generate the rest of the gerber files trying to adhere to online tutorials (youtube rpc-electronics and sparkfun’s tutorial) as closely as possible.

Is there a better way to generate a silkscreen layer? Is Gerbv just not meant to check the silkscreen layer?

I’m also getting my_filename.s#1 and my_filename.b#1 files that seem to increment (my_filename.s#2) every time I try to run the cam file? Should I delete those files?

Thanks for any help in advance…and if any of you out there are software engineers, please oh please make something less crappy than Eagle.

2

silk-gen.ulp does not generate a gerber file; it creates new layers of your board that you should then export instead of the traditional silkscreen layers (using the CAM processor.)

the .silk file appears to be a text file that the ULP uses to hold the default parameters for generating the new silkscreen, NOT a gerber file.