I assume you are trying to use arcs for corners on circuit traces. I had
this problem with Protel 98 and with Protel 99. It even got worse for
me. My arcs would be fine in PCB, and a few minutes later they would be
changed, for no apparent reason! Even 180 degree arcs would frequently
reverse direction. You might want to check the PCB file again just to
make sure.

I never did find a solution to this, and worked with Altium for weeks to
no avail. I finally quit trying to use arcs and instead created "psuedo
arcs" Msw out of straight line segments. I saved these in my library
file and just pasted them into the PCB when needed.

As for the Gerbers PentaLogix makes a good free Gerber viewer called
Viewmate (www.pentalogix.com). You can insert each Gerber file into a
separate "layer" in the viewer. Then you can turn each layer on or off
and check the routing, placement, etc. It doen not automatically check
for errors of course, but you should be able to spot the 270 deegree
arcs.

Bob Butcher
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Behalf Of Leo Potjewijd
Sent: Monday, September 19, 2005 5:31 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [PEDA] arcs in Gerber go the wrong way

On the PCB (P99SE) all my arcs look great, even on the print preview.
But in the Gerber files some, not all, are wrong: the start and end in
the right places, but go the wrong way around. So a 90 degree turn ends
up as a 270 degree turn with another center and shorts stuff......

It happened once before, but the fab house detected and reported that
error so they could correct it in time.
Like now, I could not identify the source of the problem and have no
clue whatsoever....

I checked the PCB at ASCII level but could not find any indications what
went wrong (a 'good' one looks exactly the same as a 'wrong' one). I
even generated the Gerbers from that copy: no luck.
Inside the Gerbers I am at a loss: I cannot identify arcs, let alone the
right and wrong ones.

Has anyone seen this before and found a solution or workaround?
Checking the 'software arcs' box is not an option: that messes up the
already tight clearances (had a close shave with that one, too).....


Leo Potjewijd
hardware designer
Integrated Engineering B.V.

[EMAIL PROTECTED]
+31 20 4620700


 
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