Option to include board outline when exporting all gerber files

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vanquish
Posts: 33
Joined: 03 Jun 2011, 02:26

Option to include board outline when exporting all gerber files

#1 Post by vanquish » 27 Aug 2021, 02:08

Some board houses do not accept a separate board outline later. This is often not an issue, since the board house will assume that the PCB is a rectangle no larger than the largest dimension in any of the other layers; however, if the board has cutouts, or is not a rectangle, then the board outline must be included on some or all other layers to correctly define the board shape.

This is easily accomplished manually by selecting both board outline and any other single layer and exporting manually, but this becomes tedious if there are many layers, or repeated multiple times for different revisions. It would be very useful to have the option of including the board outline layer paired with each other layer when exporting all files.

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KevinA
Posts: 639
Joined: 18 Dec 2015, 08:35

Re: Option to include board outline when exporting all gerber files

#2 Post by KevinA » 27 Aug 2021, 15:30

"Some board houses do not accept a separate board outline later." What are you talking about? No 'board house' will accept partial gerbers to build from and not having a board outline is a dead stop, board rejected.
" since the board house will assume" If you have a board house that makes assumptions to build a PCB than you should be looking for a reliable PCB house, if I don't provide something that will force the PCB vendor to make assumptions that means if his assumptions are wrong he eats the cost of the PCB, not going to happen.

Have you ever had a PCB made? In PCB Editor Export/Gerber click the files tab/button top right and select all the files you need, board outline is needed and by default is selected!

vanquish
Posts: 33
Joined: 03 Jun 2011, 02:26

Re: Option to include board outline when exporting all gerber files

#3 Post by vanquish » 30 Aug 2021, 01:21

You have a charming bedside manner.

Advanced Circuits, the third largest PCB manufacturer in the USA, offers a nice DFM check for free. You upload a zip of your gerber files, and about an hour later it sends you back a report with any concerns over minimum clearances, etc. It does not recognize a board outline layer. The board outline must be provided superimposed on other layers.

All design files are reviewed by humans prior to production, and I'm sure they would know what to do with a board outline layer if I provided it. It's not a question of whether or not it's possible to accomplish the thing, my request is for a minor change in the software which would greatly increase the convenience of using this tool with other tools I use.

Alex
Technical Support
Posts: 3897
Joined: 13 Jun 2010, 23:43

Re: Option to include board outline when exporting all gerber files

#4 Post by Alex » 30 Aug 2021, 02:17

As you already know you can select two layers (board outline and other layer) and export them to single gerber file. We will consider an option to include board outline to all layers when "export all" is performed.

vanquish
Posts: 33
Joined: 03 Jun 2011, 02:26

Re: Option to include board outline when exporting all gerber files

#5 Post by vanquish » 31 Aug 2021, 03:11

Thanks, Alex.

Good to see you again :)

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