Someone was asking what types of software people use to manufacture their boards. My machine is not setup for milling. I have only used it for drilling holes in the boards and thus wrote my own program to do so. At the time, I could not get any useable information regarding excellon files or NC drill files, so I wrote the program to accept XY coordinate files. This is very time consuming for complicated boards to produce the original file, but if you are making several of the same board, it is quite efficient. Actually, some CAD programs can output the XY coordinate file and thus most of the work is already done.
Lately, I have given some thought to adding on a conversion program so that the program will accept the NC drill files produced by the standard CAD programs (still in the research stages).
In my research I came across a webpage with a tutorial on what is in a drill file (excellon). I thought others on this group would also be interested in this. It is at
http://www.excellon.com/applicationengineering/manuals/program.htmThis site is packed with a lot of information.
-Mike
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]