Re: [CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO] Help: PCB Trace Milling Software

Jon,

Gotta agree with that. I looked at a Gerber file last night, and it was
quite simple. I saw D1, D2 and D10, and a long list of integers after X
& Y. If the D's are to turn on and off the apritures, then I can see
where that would be easier to convert to contours.

Anyway, Eagle is up, and a Ztrace demmo. Probably some limits on the
demo. Found out that Eagle should be able to import my OrCad net
lists. I know where to get a Gerber RS-274X, although I was avoiding
it!

So I'll get up on Eagle, and see what it can do first. Excellent
support! Ed says it can output CNC, I'm going to find out what it looks
like.


Alan

Jon Elson wrote:

>
> Alan Marconett KM6VV wrote:
>
> > Jon,
> >
> > Thanks for the run down. As I sort of expected, the information is
> > not
> > in a readily useable format. That's why one of my ideas was to start
> > from a HPGL file.
>
> No, this is even worse! At least with the Gerber file, there is only
> one line drawn
> for every trace segment, and one pad flashed for every pad (although
> sometimes,
> certain pads are drawn, too, but rarely on raster photoplotters).
>
> With the HPGL, wide traces are drawn by multiple adjacent passes of the
> pen, and
> all pads are drawn with either vectors and/or circles. This will be
> MUCH more
> confusing to decipher!
>
> > I think the PCB plot file I was looking at had the
> > pen lines at some finite granularity, i.e., something like being on .3
> >
> > mm spacing (grid), related to the pen width. SO, if it routinely took
> >
> > some small number of pen strokes to make up a "trace", then these
> > could
> > be "assembled", and their perimeter could be described as a simple
> > contour (for SIMPLE PCB's, the type one might layout with express
> > PCB).
> > Pads and other shapes could similarly be "built up" to yield a
> > contour.
> > Once traces/pads have been reduced to simple contours, Vector CAD/CAM
> > could generate tool paths for me. And, given that the spacing is
> > always
> > adequate, as you brought up, it could work.
>
> I think you will find it is a LOT harder to create a general program to
> do this for
> most cases than it would be to do for a Gerber file, which is already
> hard enough!
>
> Jon
>
>
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