Homebrew PCBs

Has anyone ever seen a FREE DXF to Gerber converting program.

My friend has been successfully making circuit boards with AutoCad for
several years and has been using DXF to HPGL to Gerber which is quite
tedious.

 

Sage

 



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Maybe it's time for him to learn a real EDA program?

I can see the advantage of a normal CAD, you aren't limited by the constraints a PCB layout software may impose, but it's no doubt more tedious to do it that way.

I would suggest KiCAD, it's very easy to use, but it's not limiting either.

It's also easy to change things on the fly, say a pad is too small, just right click on it, choose "edit pad" and change it.

In Eagle it seems you must make a new footprint and change it (of course KiCAD can do this too but you don't _have_ to do it that way)



--- In Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com, "Dave Sage" <davesage12@...> wrote:

>
> Has anyone ever seen a FREE DXF to Gerber converting program.
> 
> My friend has been successfully making circuit boards with AutoCad for
> several years and has been using DXF to HPGL to Gerber which is quite
> tedious.
> 
>  
> 
> Sage
> 
>  
> 
> 
> 
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>

He didn't ask for opinions on PCB layout software. This guy is 80 something
years old and has been making boards forever and with AutoCad as long as
it's been around. You know the saying you can't teach an old dog ..

So I'd appreciate comments on DXF to Gerber converting software please

 

Thanks

 

Sage

 

 



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

This may help...
http://www.sonnetsoftware.com/support/sonnet-suites/dxftogerber.html


On Wed, Mar 30, 2011 at 2:08 PM, Dave Sage <davesage12@rogers.com> wrote:

>
>
> He didn't ask for opinions on PCB layout software. This guy is 80 something
> years old and has been making boards forever and with AutoCad as long as
> it's been around. You know the saying you can't teach an old dog ..
>
> So I'd appreciate comments on DXF to Gerber converting software please
>
> Thanks
>
> Sage
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>  
>



-- 
Paul Mateer, AA9GG
Elan Engineering Corp.
www.elanengr.com
NAQCC 3123, SKCC 4628, FPQRP 2003


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Great, thanks. I'll pass it along and see what he thinks.

His problem is that his business partner  used to do the conversion for him
with a program (that did a lot of other things) that had to be registered to
the PC.

His patner has moved on and he does not want to install the program on his
machine only for this purpose.

 

Thanks

 

 

 



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]