Homebrew PCBs

John, I now know how you feel.
I spent hours and hours drawing a board in TurboCAD only to find out 
that when I milled the board, I had inverted one of the layers. So, 
all of the holes and traces on the other side were off. So, it is a 
pain. I agree. Hopefully this code we are working on will ease the 
pain until one of the comercial packages can save in GCode.

Dave

--- In Homebrew_PCBs@y..., "crankorgan" <john@k...> wrote:
> Hi Dave,
>         I ment the guys who make Eagle or Target. Make a drawing
> program that saves the pad outlines as Gcode or PLT. Running a post
> processor is after the fact. You have to put up with all kinds of
> garbage. I do beleive a program is comming! Lots of people talking
> about milling circuit boards at the hobby level. I would even
> go for a Gcode save in Turbocad at this point. I left out two
> holes on my last circuit board. Now I have two or more hours
> of work to fix it. Adding the holes is easy. Then I have to rotate
> the drawing. Convert it to Gcode. Take out some junk. Add some
> other stuff. Then center the Gcode, then offset it for the machine
> I mill it on. All because I left two hole out. Now if I could draw
> in GCode. We are talking minutes.  
> 
>                                         John 
> 
> 
> 
> --- In Homebrew_PCBs@y..., "ph4appl" <ph4appl@y...> wrote:
> > Not easy by any stretch of the imagination. If anyone doesn't 
> believe 
> > me, take a look at 
> > 
> > http://www.cg.tuwien.ac.at/studentwork/CESCG99/SKrivograd/
> > 
> > This page describes some of the math involved with generating an 
> > outline or tool path.
> > 
> > On a side note, I got ToolPathPro to compile this afternoon. I 
ran 
> a 
> > sample DXF file through it and generated some rather interesting 
> > GCodes. I'll have some pics on my website shortly. The good news 
is 
> > that Alan has inspired me to keep on working on this thing. It 
can 
> > currently handle direct DXF export from TraxMakerPro and convert 
to 
> > GCode. I still need to work on the optimization algorithm, and 
> forsee 
> > several weeks of coding, but it is in the works.
> > 
> > Dave
> > 
> > --- In Homebrew_PCBs@y..., Alan Marconett KM6VV <KM6VV@a...> 
wrote:
> > > Hi John,
> > > 
> > > Well, I wouldn't say it's a "very simple program to write", 
right 
> > Dave? 
> > > I've seen the three Gerber files from TCi.  Silk, component, and
> > > solder.  Both component (green) and solder (red) have traces 
and 
> > pads. 
> > > The silk (yellow) is component outline. 
> > > I only saw a few random blue and red lines when I loaded a TCi 
> > gerber
> > > file into KCam.  I suspect I have an old version.  As long as I 
> can
> > > convert the files, I'll just run them through my own "process".
> > >  
> > > Hay!  If the cost is high, maybe I can sell an inexpensive 
> converter
> > > program!
> > > 
> > > Alan  KM6VV
> > > 
> > > 
> > > crankorgan wrote:
> > > > 
> > > > Hi Alan,
> > > >         TCI makes three Gerber files. One of them has the
> > > > pads and traces. When I plot the Gerber I get lots of
> > > > BLUE lines. Red is cut and blue is travel. When I see
> > > > more BLUE than Red I quit. I like my machine to spend
> > > > it's time cutting not traveling all over. Most program
> > > > that do outlines of traces are bogus. There are several
> > > > new ones coming out. Big money! A very simple program to 
write. 
> I
> > > > think the cost is high because there are so few PCBMills in
> > > > use. They are very expensive to buy. I got laughed at last
> > > > year when I came out with my plans. Now there are several
> > > > people with homemade PCBMills. Here is your chance to get
> > > > in on the fun!
> > > > 
> > > >                                                  John
> > > >