On Mon, Mar 15, 2004 at 09:40:49PM -0800, Matt Ettus wrote: > > > Is PCB capable of creating X-Y placement files for pick and place? The format > seems pretty simple. > > Thanks, > Matt >
Hi Matt, I have mostly implemented this. Do you have any good data from a manufacturer on the exact format they like to see? It is fairly industry standard? What I'm doing is having the routine calculate the centroid of the pins/pads on the fly so you're not sensitive to where the mark may be on the footprint. The only thing I have left to do is rotation. Any suggestions on the algorithm? Any idea what the standard definition might be? For example, if I have an 8 pin DIP or SOIC, what is the angle of this: 1 8 2 7 3 6 4 5 Is that 0 degrees or +90 degrees? DJ has suggested an approach that looks which quadrant pin #1 is in after you find the centroid and then using a definition like: pin #1 quadrant, rotation 1, +180 degrees 2, +90 degrees 3, 0 degrees 4, -90 (or should this be written as +270) degrees Any thoughts based on real experience as to cases where this will fail? I suppose (thinking while typing) if pin 1 falls on an axis, I need to properly deal (SIP packages, 2 pin packages, etc) and a 1 pin part would always be 0 and a 1 pad part could be 0 or 90 based on aspect ratio of the pad. Comments? Suggestions? -Dan --
