drill/viewmate help

[Ken Marx]

Hi,

Sorry - this a long-ish post...

Just learning about gerber/excellon stuff in an effort to, well, learn
more. But also in debugging a possible problem with my board house,
futurlec (posted earlier on that).

So, I have a few questions. I'm on Eagle 4.13r1 light, XP sp2.

I've run drillcfg.ulp, and cam jobs for EXCELLON and EXCELLON_RACK.
Also, GERBER_RS274X.

The main one is that in looking at my gerber/excellon files in
Pentalogix viewmate, the gerber layers all display fine. But when I load
the .drl and .drd files into a layer, not only is the origin very
different, but the scale is also way off - roughly 10X. Plus the holes
all appear the same size. Kind of hard to tell if they really match up
with the gerber layers or not. (And that was kind of the exercise in the
first place.)

In viewmate I am loading both drl and drd. Saw that hint in an earlier post.

So, here's a list of things I'm wondering:

Viewmate:
---------
1. How do I configure things so that the drill holes match the board
location *and* scale in viewmate?

2. Why do all the holes appear the same size? I have a .drl with:
T01 0.024in
T02 0.028in
T03 0.032in
T04 0.035in
T05 0.040in
T06 0.043in
T07 0.118in
T08 0.128in

3. Once I do get that far, how do I get viewmate to tell me the exact
size of an object (other than measuring with the curosr)?

Eagle cam jobs:
--------------
1. Do I need to make sure that certain layers are made visible (or not)
before running any of the ulp or cam jobs? I do have 'pos coord.' and
'mirror' clicked by default. Should I unclick mirror?

2. I'm unable to visually match the drd directives up with known holes
on the .brd. I've tried with mirror on/off. Shouldn't I be able to see
the x,y coords in the drd file? Like if I have a hole at 0.650, 2.050,
shouldn't I see Y followed by 2050 somewhere in the .drd file?

3. The default cam job file names seem to want to use a %N variable, I'm
guessing for the filename (probably in the doc - sorry). But it always
just creates a file named %N.drd or whatever. I think I saw it do this
even if I just used '.drd'. Not a big deal, but since I'm rambling anyway...

Thanks for any guidance. Really appreciate this mail list. It's already
been of great help.

I can post any/all files to my website if someone really wants to take
the time to look.

best regards,
ken

[Colin]

Post by Ken Marx
The main one is that in looking at my gerber/excellon files in
Pentalogix viewmate, the gerber layers all display fine. But when I load
the .drl and .drd files into a layer, not only is the origin very
different, but the scale is also way off - roughly 10X. Plus the holes
all appear the same size. Kind of hard to tell if they really match up
with the gerber layers or not. (And that was kind of the exercise in the
first place.)
In viewmate I am loading both drl and drd. Saw that hint in an earlier post.

First get the scaling in Viewmate correct. This is in the options when you
import the drd file. You might need left of decimal: 2, right of decimal: 3.
Play with these to get the proper scale. Then import the drl file, using
import apertures. The hole sizes should display correctly.

With this sorted, some of the other questions in your post will answer
themselves...

In your cam job for the drill file, I suggest you use device Excellon,
rather than Excellon_Rack. This combines tool size and drilling data into
one file. Then you don't need to worry about the drl file.

--
Colin

[Ken Marx]

Post by Colin

Post by Ken Marx
The main one is that in looking at my gerber/excellon files in
Pentalogix viewmate, the gerber layers all display fine. But when I load
the .drl and .drd files into a layer, not only is the origin very
different, but the scale is also way off - roughly 10X. Plus the holes
all appear the same size. Kind of hard to tell if they really match up
with the gerber layers or not. (And that was kind of the exercise in the
first place.)
In viewmate I am loading both drl and drd. Saw that hint in an earlier post.

First get the scaling in Viewmate correct. This is in the options when you
import the drd file. You might need left of decimal: 2, right of decimal: 3.
Play with these to get the proper scale. Then import the drl file, using
import apertures. The hole sizes should display correctly.
With this sorted, some of the other questions in your post will answer
themselves...
In your cam job for the drill file, I suggest you use device Excellon,
rather than Excellon_Rack. This combines tool size and drilling data into
one file. Then you don't need to worry about the drl file.
--
Colin

Hi Colin (et al),

Thanks very much for the reply. I just spent a while playing with the
scaling as you suggest.

(Actually, trying to import apperatures leads to much confusion looking
for D codes and such. I'm hoping you meant Import Drill&Rout, which is
what I was using for initial post. Even trying a file type of Excellon
for apperatures leads to confusion, since it's looking for column
separators and D codes, none of which exist in my .drd file. Besides
which, it seems to already have a D code table - from imported gerber
files, I'm guessing?)

Anyway, my said EXCELLON .drd output seems to be in mils. The board is
roughly 2"x4" and the .drd file has things like:
...
T07
X3793Y1395
X3793Y1592
T08
X268Y318
X2568Y318
...

For import to viewmate, I've tried all manner of scaling for left/right
decimal position: 1/3, 2/3,... the most obvious to me seems to be 0/3 or
0/4. I get really big scaling or really small scaling, but nothing that
matches the gerber layers. I've tried setting the viewmate units (bottom
left widget) to mil or inches. That has no effect.

So, while I'm still curious about the %N (I found %L doc) and how to get
object dimensions in viewmate, I'd be happy for now to know how to
specify the scale for importing .drd files correctly.

Thanks again for the assistance,
ken

[Colin]

Post by Ken Marx
Anyway, my said EXCELLON .drd output seems to be in mils. The board is
...
T07
X3793Y1395
X3793Y1592
T08
X268Y318
X2568Y318
...
For import to viewmate, I've tried all manner of scaling for left/right
decimal position: 1/3, 2/3,... the most obvious to me seems to be 0/3 or
0/4. I get really big scaling or really small scaling, but nothing that
matches the gerber layers. I've tried setting the viewmate units (bottom
left widget) to mil or inches. That has no effect.

Try 2/3, and Omit leading zeros. It should work....

--
Colin

[Ken Marx]

Post by Colin

Post by Ken Marx
Anyway, my said EXCELLON .drd output seems to be in mils. The board is
...
T07
X3793Y1395
X3793Y1592
T08
X268Y318
X2568Y318
...
For import to viewmate, I've tried all manner of scaling for left/right
decimal position: 1/3, 2/3,... the most obvious to me seems to be 0/3 or
0/4. I get really big scaling or really small scaling, but nothing that
matches the gerber layers. I've tried setting the viewmate units (bottom
left widget) to mil or inches. That has no effect.

Try 2/3, and Omit leading zeros. It should work....

That did it. Thanks for your help (and patience).

best,
ken