Abd ul-Rahman,
While I understand your comments, I offer the following. Importing
Gerber back to Protel is not the solution for this documentation issue because
of course the Gerber contains no intelligent part information. Using Gerber
would definitely not bring anything to the table when creating P&P files
because of the loss of the intelligence. Our P&P files must have the bottom
side flipped and re-oriented because our manufacturing insists on have the
documentation oriented as viewed by the user and we manipulate these at the PCB
file level prior to generating P&P files and prints from a flipped and often
rotated version of the original PCB file.
Similar issues arise when creating solder paste screens because we must
manipulate footprint apertures on certain specific footprints, thus not having
the footprint names would significantly hinder our ability to identify the
footprints needing manipulation or doing it in an intelligent global editing
type manner.
Geoff,
Yes I am aware of the issues you raised although I had never pursued
them nor understood them in the detail that you obviously do. Typically it is
not an issue that effects us because the designators are commonly moved around
and located as needed at the documentation level because they are not bound by
the constraints of the board fabrication limitations. Also during this process
the comments stay hidden because we do not use them for any intelligent
purpose. So we don't get bit by those movement when flipping issues per se.
I have experienced the bounds changing quite often as well when
initially designing the PCB just during the process of orienting and placing
components because quite often I might place a circuit and then later decide to
move it or re-orient it as other portions of the design come together. I'm not
flipping it at that time though, that is typically only when documenting or
creating post fabrication files.
Sincerely,
Brad Velander
Senior PCB Designer
Northern Airborne Technology
#14 - 1925 Kirschner Road,
Kelowna, BC, V1Y 4N7.
tel (250) 763-2329 ext. 225
fax (250) 762-3374
-----Original Message-----
From: Abd ul-Rahman Lomax [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Wednesday, May 24, 2006 8:49 PM
To: Protel EDA Discussion List
Subject: Re: [PEDA] Something off the board
At 02:24 PM 5/24/2006, Brad Velander wrote:
> I run into this a lot when we are doing our
> assembly/solderpaste screen documentation because we quite often
> rotate/flip the boards building that documentation.
For reasons that Mr. Harland noted, this can be tricky. I would set
up such documentation by importing gerber data back into the board.
It's quick and easy to do -- sometimes I would use an empty board as
a workspace to put it together and then copy and paste it into my
mail board file. That is, I might have, on one side of my workspace,
a top assembly. Then, to the right of it, a bottom assembly,
mirrored. The latter is entirely a pile of free primitives, brought
in from the gerber of the appropriate layers, mirrored. Text is drawn
with lines, as in gerber. I would normally want pads there, to show
how the assembly legend and component positions correlate with them.
But it has no components in it.
(There is no problem mirroring free, non-text primitives.)
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