DJ Delorie wrote: >> a) pcb paste layer gerber is directly from the pad layer, and I >> think in many cases that lays down too much solder. I haven't >> experimented enough to be able to say for sure. I'd like to see >> some paste layer control added to the footprint definition. > > I have a post-processor that sets the paste based on the footprint > (name and pad; some footprints get paste pushed out, some are > centered, etc).
That would be useful. Care to share it? > > But yeah, at some point we need to modify the footprint data structure > to have independent paste/mask control. What are the barriers to that happening? I presume that a file format change for footprints is a Big Deal. > >> b) My current method for prepping a file for the laser cutter is a bit >> of a kludge. Ideally, I'd like to see the gerber previewer have the >> option of exporting .dxf of the pad outlines from the paste layer. > > If you can provide a format that's ideal for your tooling, plus the > rules for tweaking, we can write a custom exporter for it. All my tools are DXF based. I used QCAD for viewing/tweaking, and I wrote a DXF to Epilog converter that uses QCAD's I/O library. Unfortunately, while it is easy to write a .dxf reader (because you can ignore lots of the file) it is much harder to write correctly, since you have to include all the boiler plate and set-up in the correct order with correct semantics. The QCAD library does simplify that somewhat, however. In the end, All I look for are lines and arcs. So just about any sensible format for pad outlines expressed as lines and arcs with X,Y coordinates should be usable. I looked briefly at trying to interpret the Gerber, but decided I had better things to do. > I was thinking of this number. Pololu uses 3mil mylar, and specify a > 10mil minimum hole size. > Interesting. I'll have to do more experiments to understand my tool limits. -dave _______________________________________________ geda-user mailing list [email protected] http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
