Mail Archives: geda-user/2015/07/27/13:16:01
That last - incomplete- message was sent by some glitch in Thunderbird.
It decided I was taking too long and sent it on my behalf - without
permission I may add!
For some time now I have struggled with the rather inscrutable and
somewhat arcane User interface for Gerber exports from PCB. While
nothing has changed recently (currently using latest git-HEAD), more
oddities have turned up. Specifically, there are three issues. The first
is simply figuring out how to specify the base directory for the gerber
files. It is almost completely inscrutable, but patience and about a
half hour of trial and error resolves it. This bit of the GUI really
needs a standard Folder Chooser.
The second issue is the weirdness of the the output file names. Standard
layers (Top, bottom, etc) come out named after their respective layers.
However all the other layers - specifically "Spare" in the current case,
come out named something like Group3.gbr - and it matters not how you
might rename them. I did discover this morning however that choosing
the "single" option in the export panel does indeed at least give
rational names which match the given layer names.
The third issue is more serious and irritating. If I draw some stuff on
the "Spare" layer and then generate the gerbers, the spare layer
contains a large amount of stuff from other layers - pads and pins
mostly - that are neither supposed to be there nor do they show up in
PCB's display - only in the gerber viewer. These all have to be manually
deleted usidg Gerbv.
While these are not show-stoppers, the random junk in the spare layer
could be a rather painful problem if one was foolish enough to send a
board off without previewing the gerbers.
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