Hi Folks,
I’m a newbie with Eagle and this is my first board and first time using BatchPCB. I used the sparkfun.cam and silk_gen.ulp along with the default design rules in Eagle which looks like the minimum is set to 8 mils for traces and spaces.
The BatchPCB bot geeked on two of the apertures being too thin. Does anybody know how I can fix them?
Thanks,
Richard Cooke
Lake Forest CA, USA
rcooke:
Hi Folks,I’m a newbie with Eagle and this is my first board and first time using BatchPCB. I used the sparkfun.cam and silk_gen.ulp along with the default design rules in Eagle which looks like the minimum is set to 8 mils for traces and spaces.
The BatchPCB bot geeked on two of the apertures being too thin. Does anybody know how I can fix them?
Greetings Richard,
I don’t have a sure-fire solution as I’ve never had this happen to me. I’ve had my share of other issues as the path from PCB concept to PCB manufacture is cruel mistress!
In general, when confronted with a process step error (from the CAM processor in your case) a little detective work is in order.
(1) Try to isolate the layer or element that causes the error.
(2) Try to rebuild the library part that causes the error from step 1, or delete the trace segment that is causing the error.
(3) Try the CAM job again.
I believe that some EAGLE library parts are/were built with either native metric dims, or because of missing apertures in your design a very small one is used as a general purpose filler. This is better than nothing but over use of small apertures drives up the processor time and output file sizes.
Don’t be surprised if the error is on a silk-screen layer!
You said you ran the check rules, which is mandatory IMHO:
(a) Did you turn on all layers before running DRC?
(b) Did you run the DRC with angle and grid switches on?
(c) Did you turn off all layers except Unrouted (19) and Dimension (20), and do a 100% inspection for unrouted traces? Hint: this step should have no yellow ‘ticks’ anywhere - any that appear should be fixed before running the CAM processor job again.
(d) Did you try to “route the finished board” looking for lost segments? Hint: Select the “Route Manually” icon, hit the left mouse button, and see if any unrouted traces attach to the cursor.
Let us know what you discover. Comments Welcome!
Hi Peter,
I did finally manage to track down the problem to a custom package I “designed”. I guess the rounded pads were causing the 0.0077" aperture to be used. It’s a bit strange though - only one of the pads caused the error and I had 32 of them in the package.
Does anybody know of a good QFN32 footprint I can use?
Thanks,
Richard Cooke
Lake Forest, CA USA