Homebrew PCBs

--- In Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com, "b52chris" 
<christiansen_alex@...> wrote:
>
> hello. 
> I have to recive a gerber file soon,and for that purpose, I have 
> downloaded "View mate 10" and "gerber magic" .
> ( I have to make a simple PCB, and the costumer will drill it 
> himself ,and he will need the drill holes)
> 
> Now , to test it, I made some files from an Eagle project, but 
after 
> choosing to make Gerber 274 X , in Egle ,my files get extensions 
> like .BOT  or .cmp .
> 
> Now, I can view them in the gerber viewers , but there is a 
problem. 
> I dont get the drill holes .
> 
> I can understand, that drill holes will not be needed in the 
file,as 
> the PCB would be drilled with a CNC mashine after etching. 
> 
> But is it not possible to get the drill holes in the layout 
drawing, 
> for etching ?
>  and second, ARE the files I get from Eagle , Gerber ? They have 
> different extensions than gerber. ?
> Alex
>
Greetings, the extensions .bot(bottom) and .cmp(component) are eagle 
extensions, you also need to generate the drill files for the board, 
which is in the eagle control panel under CAM jobs, excellon.cam, 
this will generate a drill file that contains the drill sizes, and 
x,y coordinates. I'm not sure if a cnc machine can read the drl file 
because I don't have one :(  You may need to convert it to another 
format like gcode I think.