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The Eagle hasn’t quite landed
13 December 2012 | by Excuse me whilst I explode
For the past few weeks I have been designing a simple circuit for my Arduino clock. Its the first PCB I have designed and I’ve needed a bit of help from a few sources to get it right. All that help has been really welcome.
One thing just isn’t happening for me though. Exporting the Eagle files for manufacturing. Namely the drill file part of it. The design has been done in Eagle, because it has a number of libraries of commonly used parts to help numpties like me design stuff. It also has a function to produce the gerber files so your PCB can be manufactured. But the drill file bit just isn’t happening for me. Countless hours googling the answer have come up empty so I’m going to have to think of a way round it.
This should be the easiest bit, maybe it is in other packages but its just not doing it in Eagle. I think I will have to take a break from it for a while as it is starting to wind me up.
2 Responses to “The Eagle hasn’t quite landed”
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- Matt W1MST, Managing Editor
Hello Alex,
You may find more success with a more fully integrated PCB generation software that supports low volume PCB production for prototyping, etc. Take a look at something like ExpressPCB. They offer free schematic and board layout software, you get an instant quote on your design, and you don’t need to worry about complicated layer issues, Gerber files, drill files, etc. I have found their production services to be excellent with very good communications throughout the short waiting time.
The disadvantage is that your design is not portable to other suppliers but for low volume, this is not an issue.
– Glenn DJ0IQ and W9IQ
Hi Alex,
I’m not a ham but happened to stumble across your post. Here are my notes on doing the data export for PCB fab:
Exporting Data for PCB Fab
– In the board editor (with the PCB open) select File|CAM Processor.
– In the dialog, select File|Open|Job.
– Select gerb274X.cam and click the Process Job button in the dialog.
– Repeat for excellon.cam.
– Those should create eight files. Two are human info files: .gpi, .dri, leaving
six machine readable files:
.cmp – top copper
.sol – bottom copper
.stc – top solder mask
.sts – bottom solder mask
.drd – excellon drill data
.plc – silkscreen
— Are you doing the second pass with excellon.cam? I’m no Eagle expert but if I can help, you can email me.
Good luck,
Steve L.
http://www.tronola.com