At 11:40 PM 9/16/2008, you wrote:
> This repeats the rest of the G-codes into an array of 2 x 11 with a
> spacing of 5 x 1.1 inches.
Plain old grid panels are, in my experience, rare. More likely I'm
mixing multiple projects onto a single panel so I can etch them all at
once.
I didn't realize that was what you do. I never have that need. I do
production work and always need multiple panels to complete a
job. So there is no point to putting more than one board on a panel.
If you just want as many of one board as fit in a panel, most fabs can
do that for you without you having to worry about how much space to
leave between them to compensate for *their* process.
The fab house doesn't care about board spacing. That depends on your
board layout and the assembly house. Other than the width of the
rout around the board, the board fab house has no interest in how you
space them out.
> As to "tweeking" drill sizes, I don't get what you mean. Why would I
> want to tweek a drill size on just one of N boards in a panel?
No, I tweak every single one of them all at once, in batch, to match
my process. In my case, I set all the drill sizes to 8 mil to act as
a "drill helper" for my manual drilling setup.
Ok, so you are doing this stuff by hand as a small project. That is
very different from the production work I do. My goal is to automate
as much as possible and to eliminate any sort of manual work,
including running script files. The more you rely on the user to
process the outputs, the more likely a mistake is. When making
hundreds of boards at a time, any mistake can be costly.
> Once you have done the panelize step, any changes require you to
> delete all work of panelizing and do it again after you make the
> change.
Er, not really. My scripts merge a placement PCB with the original
PCBs to form a combined panel PCB. So, I do all the panel-related
editing (outlines, alignment marks, board placement) on the placement
panel, then merge the projects into them. If I have to edit a
*design*, I do so, then re-merge the panel.
The panel post-processing I do for my etch is done in batch, and can
be scripted.
That's great. But for straight forward work of building a panel of
the same board repeated, there is no point to using scripts when the
layout tool should produce the Gerber files for you.
> Shouldn't the software deal with that for you by just allowing you
> to specify the panel rather than creating it by copying stuff?
I think you're being naive about what a "panel" can be. It's much
more than just a simple grid of one board.
I can be naive about a lot of things. I just didn't know you were
doing that kind of work... For the work I do, I need tools that
facilitate productivity and minimize the risk of errors. I prefer to
use tools that do the job simply and effectively without unnecessary
manual steps. I think a step and repeat option should be in any good
layout tool.
Rick
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