Hi DJ -- Of course, I am not intending to criticize the outstanding work you've been doing on PCB!
> > > The problem is that PCB has autogenerated your board outline in the > > fab drawing assuming that it is the rectanglular drawing area. PCB > > developers: this is a misfeature, IMHO. > > If the user doesn't create an outline layer, we really don't have > anything else to go by. In the fab drawing (foo_fab.gbr) the board outline and dimensions are called out. Please refer to Vax 9000's posted Gerbers to see what I mean. Of course, my head might be wedged abou this issue . . . . . . The problem then is that if the user supplies a separate outline layer (foo_outline.gbr), there are two contradictory pieces of information in the design package. As a consequence of Murphy's law, if there are two contradictory pieces of info in any design package, one correct and one incorrect, the fine folks in manufacturing will *always* chose to fabricate based upon the incorrect instruction. > > > In commerical tools, you would have a separate layer calling out the > > board outline. For PCB, you probably need to put a manual instruction > > somewhere for the fab house to route the boad along the silkscreen > > outline. > > No, we have an outline layer also. Maybe we need to *default* to > having one of the layers named "outline"? But then people will think > we support less than 8 copper layers in rectangular boards. Sigh. > Time for the >8 layer patch. Yeah, maybe naming one of the unused layers "outline" would be a good idea. It would help birdbrains like me remember to draw the board outline unambiguously. Stuart
