Homebrew_PCBs

The circuit board I have produced is a tiny tiny bit smaller than what it should be. I'm guessing my printer is not printing dead accurately.

I'm going to cnc drill the board.

For whatever reason my cam software will not scale the NC drill file. Entering different ratios on import does nothing and the hole to hole distance remains the same.

There's no option in my PCB software to adjust the export scale (using Diptrace).

So now my only option seems to be finding an application that can import/open the NC drill file, scale it, then save/export it with the new scale.

Any ideas ?

Cheers,

Keith.

>The circuit board I have produced is a tiny tiny bit smaller than what it should be. I'm guessing my printer is not printing dead accurately.
>
>
> I'm going to cnc drill the board.
>
>
> For whatever reason my cam software will not scale the NC drill file. Entering different ratios on import does nothing and the hole to hole distance remains the same.
>
>
> There's no option in my PCB software to adjust the export scale (using Diptrace).
>
>
> So now my only option seems to be finding an application that can import/open the NC drill file, scale it, then save/export it with the new scale.
>
>
> Any ideas ?

>
>
> Cheers,
>
>
> Keith.

>Thanks very much Harvey.
>
> I found a way to do it better than just general scaling.
>
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> Diptrace can export the holes part of the file as a DXF so I did that.

>
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> The vertical and horizontal measurements (on my actual board) were out of scale by slightly different amounts so I needed to scale them independently. Brought the DXF into a cad program then scaled X and Y axis independantly and now have a hole drilling drawing of the perfect dimensions.
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> Import the new DXF into my cam software and good to go.
>
>
> Keith.

>Harvey,
>
> this is my "CNC PCB drill". It's my 2400 x 1500 plasma cutting table. Well it's all I've got LOL:
>

>
> PCB DRILLING ON PLASMA TABLE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eb8oN5rHYxM
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> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eb8oN5rHYxM
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> PCB DRILLING ON PLASMA TABLE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eb8oN5rHYxM Using 5' x 8' cnc plasma table to drill PCB
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> View on www.youtube.com https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eb8oN5rHYxM
> Preview by Yahoo
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> Bertho,
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> thanks for that. You know what, I had to calibrate the axis when I built the table but today it would never have crossed my mind to do that. Thanks for the suggestion.
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> The next PCB, I'll simple adjust the photo positive bitmap image until it prints out exactly the same dimensions as what I get in the NC drill file. That way the board turns out the exact size it should be, not that a half mm over the entire length matters that much.
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> Cheers,
>
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> Keith.
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