Re: gEDA-user: Howto make solder mask extend equal for all pads in layout?
> changeclearsize(selected,10,mil) I keep forgetting about that, because it reduces the clearance on bigger clearances too, which usually isn't what I want. ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: thoughts and comments after first PCB
On Sat, 2008-10-04 at 17:17 +0200, Duncan Drennan wrote: > > The BOM that PCB generates is far nicer than the BOM that gschem > generates. The PCB BOM has one type of item per line with all the > corresponding refdes', while gschem creates a line per refdes. Having > a PCB style BOM generator in gschem would be useful (unless I'm > missing something?) Use gnetlist -g BOM2 Pschamtic list} -- Peter Clifton Electrical Engineering Division, Engineering Department, University of Cambridge, 9, JJ Thomson Avenue, Cambridge CB3 0FA Tel: +44 (0)7729 980173 - (No signal in the lab!) ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: Howto make solder mask extend equal for all pads in layout?
On Sat, 2008-10-04 at 10:22 -0400, DJ Delorie wrote: > > Is there something similar for copper clearing of pads/pins in polygons? > > Not that I'm aware of. Again, you could write one pretty easily by > copying the existing one. changeclearsize(selected,10,mil) Also works for mask, if you select the mask layer before running it. Ah crud... just realised I've got a cat-hair re-assembled into my LCD panel. (Aside from the couple of hot-columns and failed left hand half. Not having a good laptop week. -- Peter Clifton Electrical Engineering Division, Engineering Department, University of Cambridge, 9, JJ Thomson Avenue, Cambridge CB3 0FA Tel: +44 (0)7729 980173 - (No signal in the lab!) ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: thoughts and comments after first PCB
On Sat, 04 Oct 2008 17:17:24 +0200, Duncan Drennan wrote: Most of your points remind me of my own first steps in gschem/pcb. It would be nice to newbies, if they could be rectified in some way > The BOM that PCB generates is far nicer than the BOM that gschem > generates. The PCB BOM has one type of item per line with all the > corresponding refdes', while gschem creates a line per refdes. Having a > PCB style BOM generator in gschem would be useful (unless I'm missing > something?) Different styles of BOM backends are available. Some of them assemble the similar components in one line, some don't. see http://geda.seul.org/wiki/geda:faq-attribs?s=bom ---<(kaimartin)>--- -- Kai-Martin Knaak http://lilalaser.de/blog ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
gEDA-user: thoughts and comments after first PCB
I recently completed my first PCB which was done entirely with the gEDA suite. Previously I have used gschem and then output a netlist file and contracted the layout work to be done in PCAD. As I went through the learning process with the PCB layout package I noted down the questions which came up and any thoughts/comments which I had. I hope that sharing those thoughts will contribute to the community and these two excellent packages. These comments are mostly about my experience learning and using PCB. I managed to answer most of my questions/issues by reading the manual/wiki/mailing list. I have been really impressed with both tools. Thank you to all of you who put so much effort into making the gEDA suite, and continually improving it. I am deeply grateful for all your effort, and I hope that I can contribute to this community. I am working in Windows, and running both gschem and PCB on top of cygwin. I come from a background of working with PCAD, so that forms my frame of reference for PCB layout (although I never laid out an entire board in PCAD - mostly just engineering input). I downloaded the latest stable sources and compiled them. I followed the info on the wiki and it all worked perfectly ( http://www.geda.seul.org/wiki/geda:cygwin ). One of the things that I did notice is that the pre-compiled PCB binary for Windows was *really* slow, and I am very glad that I recompiled on cygwin - it resulted in a much faster and more pleasant experience. There was also some other randomness in the Windows version, like strange menu behaviour (FYI I am running Vista). When I started I found the user interface very confusing. There were two things which caused this. Firstly, there are certain "expected" responses coming from a Windows background, like expecting a context menu on a right click. After working with PCB for a while I now keep right clicking to pan the screen around in other programmes :) Once I had a feel for the actions, it became quite easy to work with, but it is an initial bump that people have to get over. I had quite a bit of motivation (had to do this board in PCB regardless), while people who are considering options might not put in the effort to get over that bump. I think the controls should remain, what is important is to make sure that people can easily get over that initial awkwardness with the controls. The sooner they get past that the sooner they can start having fun. The second thing about the interface was that it was inconsistent with gschem. Left/right/middle clicks do different things, which is unexpected. I think that is quite a crucial issue to look at and consider. Although the two programmes are separate, they are still part of a suite. Consistency in user experience can result in a much smoother and more pleasant process. I also had some trouble figuring out the select tool (later I realised I didn't really ever need it though, but at first it caused me some confusion). What it selected seemed a bit random. Sometimes I would end up selecting a pad, sometimes the object on the other side of the board - it was just confusing, and I couldn't figure out how it decided what to select. There is also different behaviour for moving objects based on the selection. If the object is just dragged, then the lines are extended/dragged with it, if it is selected and then dragged the lines don't. It is a useful feature, but if you don't know about it, it is confusing. I've seen it come up a couple of times on this mailing list that people think there are only 8 layers supported in PCB. It is clear from all the comments here and on the wiki that the default is up to 16 layers. I think one of the problems is that on page 4 of the PCB manual under "Overview" it says, "Up to 8 copper layer designs." Fixing that may result in fewer questions about the layers. On the issue of layers, I kind of lucked out while looking through the menus to figure out where the layers and board size menus were. The File->Preferences menu seems like an odd place to find board (project) related info. It would be nice if it was more immediately obvious how to change the items hidden away there. It is easy to google for an answer and find it quickly, but again that adds to the "hump" that new users have to get over. The faster users get over the hump, the greater the adoption of this excellent tool (and the greater benefit to the community around it). This might be a result of coming from PCAD, but I found it quite strange that the mask and clearance's are set individually for pads. It makes absolute sense to have that option, but I expected it as an override for global values, rather than having each pad/pin/etc set individually. Setting a global value and then overriding it on a pad/line/etc. seems like an easier way to control these two values. Similarly being able to control the clearance for a polygon, rather than for a pad/line seems to make more sense, but again I am carrying this over from my PCAD
Re: gEDA-user: Howto make solder mask extend equal for all pads in layout?
> Is there something similar for copper clearing of pads/pins in polygons? Not that I'm aware of. Again, you could write one pretty easily by copying the existing one. ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: Howto make solder mask extend equal for all pads in layout?
Am Samstag, den 04.10.2008, 10:07 -0400 schrieb DJ Delorie: > There is a MinMaskGap() action to increase the mask gap to vendor > minimums. What you can do is this: > > * Enable the mask layer > > * Select everything that needs the mask set > > * Use Ctrl-Shift-K to reduce the mask as much as you can for > everything selected > > * :MinMaskGap(Selected,=8,mil) to increase them all to that amount > Great! Is there something similar for copper clearing of pads/pins in polygons? > If you're adventurous, you could look up the sources for MinMaskGap() > and add a SetMaskGap() that does the same thing, but forces it to a > specific value. Should be relatively easy. At least I will create a feature request for sourceforge bugtracker. Thanks Stefan Salewski ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: Howto make solder mask extend equal for all pads in layout?
There is a MinMaskGap() action to increase the mask gap to vendor minimums. What you can do is this: * Enable the mask layer * Select everything that needs the mask set * Use Ctrl-Shift-K to reduce the mask as much as you can for everything selected * :MinMaskGap(Selected,=8,mil) to increase them all to that amount If you're adventurous, you could look up the sources for MinMaskGap() and add a SetMaskGap() that does the same thing, but forces it to a specific value. Should be relatively easy. ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: Can't open default_font error in PCB
> Wouldn't it also be possible to use gsch2pcb and then run the script > file it generates? If I understand its function correctly it renames > the pads of the footprints. Renames, not renumbers. A name is something like "P1.5/INTB/TXD" or "\_RESET\_"- i.e. the symbolic name or label associated with the pin, whereas the number is something like "56" or "C14". ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
gEDA-user: openSUSE rpms (was: gEDA/gaf stable version 1.4.1-20080929 released!)
Hi all, I've build openSUSE rpm packages for the new version 1.4.1. The rpms are available for the openSUSE versions 10.2, 10.3 and 11.0. Note: I've finally removed all rpms from my personal rpm repository "home:werner2101". All rpm packages are available in the "science" repository now: http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/science/ For further informations please read the wiki page: http://www.geda.seul.org/wiki/geda:suse_rpm_installation Please let me know if there are any issues regarding the installation of the rpm packages. Regards Werner ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
gEDA-user: Howto make solder mask extend equal for all pads in layout?
Most pads and pins of our footprint libraries have solder mask relief which extends the copper pad to allow some misalignment of solder resist. I have noticed that this extend is very different for different footprints -- from 3 to 10 mil I guess. I think this extend in more a board property than a property of individual footprints, because misalignment of solder resist is a board property of whole board. So I would like to have solder mask extend equal for all my footprints on my board (8 mil I would like). (Yes, I know that there can be good reason to have different solder mask extend for individual footprints, i.e. to build mask which cover adjoining pads (gang solder mask)) Question: How can I make solder mask relief extends equal for all my pads (pins) on the board? I know I can increase/decrease it for individuals pads, but I want an absolute value for all elements. I think it can be done with a script which processes all footprint files before inserting them into the board -- is there a better way or fine script available? For copper clearance situation is similar I guess. Best regards Stefan Salewski ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: Can't open default_font error in PCB
> change either the symbol or the footprint to match. Wouldn't it also be possible to use gsch2pcb and then run the script file it generates? If I understand its function correctly it renames the pads of the footprints. ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user