Hi again John,
Not to beat a point to death (or belittle a fine product), but FREEWARE
KCam might not be the best example of generating Gcode from a Gerber
file! And as you say, it's generating EIGHT SIDES (like you do), not a
SINGLE ARC, as I've said can be done.
My program (actually just a FUNCTION in my controller program) is still
quite LIMITED in what it can do with a Gerber file (not "automatic" by
any means), but I'd LOVE a new sample of Gerber of "real work". I've
been able to do most of "DEMO1R" file that they supply.
I was not able to get KCam to read my Gerber files, so I know little of
KCam.
Yes, the "Traveling Salesman Problem" affects all such machining, board
stuffing, etc. You are lucky in that you can "hand optimize" the order
of your cuts. I'll just import into Vector CAD/CAM, and let Vector do
it for me. Or I can select the closed "trace cuts" in the order I want
(the trace cuts themselves will already be ordered properly).
That is until I decide that TSP's an interesting problem to solve, and
apply it to my own code! No rush!
I'd love to examine the Eagle (TCI3?) and/or Gerber files for your test,
if you wouldn't mind. What is TCI3? TurboCad?? Is your file RS274X or
RS274D? 'X' has a "header" in the file with all the aperture data,
while 'D' usually has an additional file (wheel file) with the
apertures. Can you supply?
Thanks for your contributions to this list!
Alan KM6VV
crankorgan wrote:
>
> Hi Group,
> I made a test pcb in TCI3. I saved it as a Gerber file. I
> then put it in KCam. The round pads became eight sided shapes.
> Forty-two pads became over 1000 lines of code. The Gcode drew the pads
> in the same order I drew them in TCI3. So I suspect if you don't want
> your machine to spend more time traveling than cutting you better
> have a plan.
> I will admit I have very little experence with Gerber. But I
> get the feeling the "Traveling Salesman Sydrome" is hiding there
> also. Plotting out a PCBoard with a good PLT file is much faster than
> a GCode file run on a homemade PCBMill. A Sherline or Taig running at
> 10,000 rpm can only cut circuit boards at 5" per minute. So do a test
> board before it is too late!
>
> John