Re: gEDA-user: test suite versus fab drawing
On Wed, Jun 24, 2009 at 11:07 PM, Dan McMahilld...@mcmahill.net wrote: I've added the start of a test suite for pcb. It checks the export HID's. I haven't come up with good ideas for checking other aspects yet. To check the actual HID take a look at Eggplant: http://www.testplant.com/products/ Humm, they've changed something since I looked at it for work, I don't see the mention of Open Source or the Eggplant download demo. The basic idea is to use VNC to automate the control of the GUI. ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: hierarchy and refdes_renum
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 John Doty wrote: On Jun 24, 2009, at 3:22 PM, Christoph Lechner wrote: I'm planning a stepper motor card for 4 motors, so I wanted to put the motor drivers and all the stuff around in one subcircuit. The problem is that for example the out-1.sym instrace called HOME (=the HOME pin of the symbol) is renamed into HOME1 by gnetlist. I run gnetlist only on the subcircuit. Don't know if it's OK to do so ... Oh, I made a mistake. Of course, the components are renamed by refdes_renum and not by gnetlist! Didn't use gnetlist on that design because my progress has stalled since then. In that approach, you run gnetlist on the top level schematic to produce a flat netlist, as required by may (most?) printed circuit layout programs. Running gnetlist on the subcircuit will treat the IO connectors as physical components. Never made it to running gnetlist because the refdes problem is a show-stopper. But when looking at the gTAG example I found out that gnetlist has many options to make the netlist for your needs out of a hierarchical design. Do I really have to run refdes_renum on the subcircuit only? Is there a tutorial about subcircuits on the net explaining all the steps in detail? CU - - Christoph -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.7 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFKQ1xuWo2QgtqY4K8RAslFAJ9GNu4zpm2voYVfHfK6EKSJWWTbXwCgqoeW NF4JBnUmkLy71PjofL+eGOk= =4+ae -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
gEDA-user: Handling odd solder paste shapes
I'm evaluating various layout packages to replace the commercial package I'm currently using. I've been playing with gEDA/PCB for a couple days and reading the documentation and I'm unclear if it can handle solder paste layer shapes that are dissimilar to the pads. For example, IPC recommends home plate shaped polygons for solder paste apertures for chip components to reduce solder balling during reflow. Somewhat complicated patterns are also used for printing paste for through hole reflow components (pin-in-paste). It doesn't look to me like the file structure for elements contain solder paste (or soldermask for that matter) information. How do people handle this? Thanks, -- Scott Post [1]scott.e.p...@gmail.com References 1. mailto:scott.e.p...@gmail.com ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: Handling odd solder paste shapes
No, PCB doesn't have a separate paste layer. It just exports the pad shapes as paste. Me, I have a perl script that post-processes that layer to adjust the sizes for the paste I want. ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: Handling odd solder paste shapes
On Jun 25, 2009, at 9:24 AM, DJ Delorie wrote: No, PCB doesn't have a separate paste layer. It just exports the pad shapes as paste. What's the command to do this? ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: Handling odd solder paste shapes
What's the command to do this? File-Export If you export gerber or postscript, you get them by default. ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: Handling odd solder paste shapes
On Thu, Jun 25, 2009 at 12:24 PM, DJ Deloried...@delorie.com wrote: Me, I have a perl script that post-processes that layer to adjust the sizes for the paste I want. I was thinking of doing a Perl script that would substitute stencil footprints (.sfp) if they were found. Otherwise a generic adjustment would be made. (* jcl *) -- You can't create open hardware with closed EDA tools. http://www.luciani.org ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: Handling odd solder paste shapes
One of my scripts takes a .pcb and generates a new paste .pcb that has just the pads, plus any layer named paste. Then you can use any of the exporters to get a paste layer. ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: Handling odd solder paste shapes
On Jun 25, 2009, at 9:39 AM, DJ Delorie wrote: What's the command to do this? File-Export If you export gerber or postscript, you get them by default. By default is a bit of a stretch. I mean, holy crap-- I've built dozens of designs and thousands of circuit boards with PCB, but I have *never* seen a paste layer generated (until just now when I went hunting for it-- since you said it could be done). There is *no mention* of how to generate a paste layer in the PCB documentation, nor in the PCB tips. Yes, I looked. (There is mention of what appeared to be a vestigial flag, but no hint of how to use it.) So... I had long ago come to the conclusion that PCB simply did not support solder paste layers. And so I completely avoided using PCB for designs that involved surface-mount parts. From everything I could see, surface-mount support was only for hobby use since there wasn't any way to generate a paste layer. And since the solder paste layer is *not* generated by default, but *only* when there are surface mount parts, I wouldn't have found it at all, except that you mentioned it today. So... Maybe it would be worth adding some mention of it in the documentation? ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: hierarchy and refdes_renum
Just curious, did you try spnet yet? On Thu, Jun 25, 2009 at 4:15 AM, Christoph Lechnercl0...@l-mx.de wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 John Doty wrote: On Jun 24, 2009, at 3:22 PM, Christoph Lechner wrote: I'm planning a stepper motor card for 4 motors, so I wanted to put the motor drivers and all the stuff around in one subcircuit. The problem is that for example the out-1.sym instrace called HOME (=the HOME pin of the symbol) is renamed into HOME1 by gnetlist. I run gnetlist only on the subcircuit. Don't know if it's OK to do so ... Oh, I made a mistake. Of course, the components are renamed by refdes_renum and not by gnetlist! Didn't use gnetlist on that design because my progress has stalled since then. In that approach, you run gnetlist on the top level schematic to produce a flat netlist, as required by may (most?) printed circuit layout programs. Running gnetlist on the subcircuit will treat the IO connectors as physical components. Never made it to running gnetlist because the refdes problem is a show-stopper. But when looking at the gTAG example I found out that gnetlist has many options to make the netlist for your needs out of a hierarchical design. Do I really have to run refdes_renum on the subcircuit only? Is there a tutorial about subcircuits on the net explaining all the steps in detail? CU - - Christoph -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.7 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFKQ1xuWo2QgtqY4K8RAslFAJ9GNu4zpm2voYVfHfK6EKSJWWTbXwCgqoeW NF4JBnUmkLy71PjofL+eGOk= =4+ae -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: Handling odd solder paste shapes
So... Maybe it would be worth adding some mention of it in the documentation? Go ahead ;-) ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: hierarchy and refdes_renum
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Anthony Shanks wrote: Just curious, did you try spnet yet? Not yet. But I successfully compiled and installed the source package a few minutes ago. My box is running the old Debian 3.1 release, btw. But my problem isn't a netlisting problem but a refdes renumbering problem, so I have to fix the refdes renumbering first. CU - - cl -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.7 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFKQ8LKWo2QgtqY4K8RAlLIAJ9oNt6amzmma9W2gps9tL0Df4oK1gCfcUCq b4ub0llwoqzXiQO39tQmKe4= =sfmr -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: hierarchy and refdes_renum
On Jun 25, 2009, at 5:15 AM, Christoph Lechner wrote: Do I really have to run refdes_renum on the subcircuit only? You don't *have* to run refdes_renum at all, and typically when I do hierarchical designs the subcircuits are small enough that I can handle refdeses manually. Remember that gnetlist will precede each hierarchical refdes by the refdes of the subcircuit it belongs to, so there will be no conflict between, say, R1 in instance X1, and R1 in instance X2. John Doty Noqsi Aerospace, Ltd. http://www.noqsi.com/ j...@noqsi.com ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: Handling odd solder paste shapes
Go ahead ;-) Fair enough. But how can one go about making small changes to the documentation? The cvs PCB manual doesn't cover export options-- there is no appropriate section in which to add a little note. (Rewriting the manual to be an up-to-date reference for the GUI-based end user would be a *huge* project to take on-- not something for a casual contributor.) And the wiki pages, which are filled with excellent hints and seem like the right place to add this sort of information, don't appear to allow editing. ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: Handling odd solder paste shapes
Fair enough. But how can one go about making small changes to the documentation? For the pcb manual, patches against GIT are best. The cvs PCB manual doesn't cover export options-- there is no appropriate section in which to add a little note. (Rewriting the manual to be an up-to-date reference for the GUI-based end user would be a *huge* project to take on-- not something for a casual contributor.) Agreed :-P And the wiki pages, which are filled with excellent hints and seem like the right place to add this sort of information, don't appear to allow editing. Ask Ales about that. ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
gEDA-user: Some thoughts about PCB track attrs in your schematic [was: Re: autorouter fixes and enhancements]
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Dave McGuire wrote: On Jun 22, 2009, at 1:33 PM, Stefan Salewski wrote: A bunch of fixes and enhancements to the original pcb autorouter should now be available in the git repository. I wonder if the PCB autorouter should be more closely bound to the gschem schematics. For example, in the schematics we may specify priority of nets (fast signals, power, ...), trace width or clearance for net segments. Maybe by attributes? I have no idea how commercial EDA software handles this. I don't know how commercial EDA software handles this either, but regardless of what they do, this functionality sounds extremely powerful. 5 years or so ago, I had to work with Protel98. The solution there was to add a special symbol (a red crosshair, if I'm right) to the net in question and then specify PCB properties like track width in the schematic. But I believe that would be possible to realize even with the current versions of the tools (gschem, gnetlist, gsch2pcb, pcb). In gschem one would add a new component to the library with one pin that has to be attached to the net we want to have special properties. In the value attribute one would say width=50mil. IMHO the best way is to add another script to the toolchain. So: gnetlist(*) gschem -- *or* -- the new tool -- import into pcb gsch2pcb | ^ +--+ (import attributes of nets via ExecuteFile) The new tool would then create a script of actions to run using ExecuteFile in PCB. OTOH the special component has to be filtered out from the stuff fed into PCB, so it appears if there were no instances of that component. Then after importing the filtered gnetlist output into PCB (the (*) arrow), one executes the script generated by the filter program and so the track width attributes of the nets are set to the proper value. Because the component was attached in the schematic fed into gnetlist we know which net to set the track width. CU - - cl -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.7 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFKQ9DUWo2QgtqY4K8RAvOEAJ9vsCbhooPjOxcy0sZE1FKgP2CnNACggk3d g+y704gbY1RD2Sjm69tRItg= =YIX3 -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: Some thoughts about PCB track attrs in your schematic [was: Re: autorouter fixes and enhancements]
Christoph Lechner wrote: But I believe that would be possible to realize even with the current versions of the tools (gschem, gnetlist, gsch2pcb, pcb). In gschem one would add a new component to the library with one pin that has to be attached to the net we want to have special properties. In the value attribute one would say width=50mil. IMHO the best way is to add another script to the toolchain. I'm just a gaf user, and not a very good one at that, but... :) Aren't track attributes just another manifestation of what is already happening with, say, components and footprint attributes already? By that I mean, we're already communicating footprint attributes along with components, so wouldn't that same mechanism allow us to convey track width attributes along with tracks? Granted, I doubt that PCB handles nets by creating a track component, but I don't know that for sure. But if something like that were in fact the case, then maybe the remaining work is to just tell PCB to respond to a width attribute when it finds one? We can apply attributes to nets in gschem already, and presumably some of those would have to be communicated to PCB to accomplish whatever they are used for today. So the mechanisms for communicating net attributes must already be there. I guess what I'm asking is, are we really talking about a component attribute here, or a net attribute? I was thinking it was the latter. ... or maybe I'm just under-caffeinated. Could happen. :) b.g. ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: Handling odd solder paste shapes
John Luciani wrote: On Thu, Jun 25, 2009 at 12:24 PM, DJ Deloried...@delorie.com wrote: Me, I have a perl script that post-processes that layer to adjust the sizes for the paste I want. I was thinking of doing a Perl script that would substitute stencil footprints (.sfp) if they were found. Otherwise a generic adjustment would be made. (* jcl *) I've thought about this problem off-and-on but never sat down to code up a patch. My latest thinking is to extend the footprint definition with an optional paste command along the lines of: paste(material, x1, y1, x2, y2, picoliters); Which says: Apply a stripe of material from x1, y1 to x2, y2, with total volume of picoliters. This handles solder paste, mounting adhesive, potting epoxy, etc -- my assumption that each material would be exported in its own layer since it is applied at a different processing step. If you need a blob instead of a strip, simply set x1==x2, y1==y2. It is specified in terms of volume instead of a pad shape since for a stencil, the size of the aperture would depend on stencil thickness and stencil fabrication process. So you would convert volumetric output to gerber via some magic script tuned to your process, presumably. Or you might use volume/x/y data directly to feed one of the smaller systems designed for prototyping that deposits solder using a syringe on an X/Y mechanism. -dave ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: Handling odd solder paste shapes
Picoliters? All we need now is an inkjet printer that can print solder paste instead of ink. ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: Handling odd solder paste shapes
DJ Delorie wrote: Picoliters? All we need now is an inkjet printer that can print solder paste instead of ink. Actually, picoliters might not be the right unit. IIRC the last time I looked at this somehting like 100's of nanoliters or something scaled more reasonable on both the top and bottom ends of the range. But anyway... The X/Y syringe thing is kind of like a printer -- it's a 1x1 dot matrix printer for solder paste :) It might be a project that could be easily hacked. Take one of the manual foot-switch operated solder syringes that runs on shop air, and lash it up to a cheap table-top CNC router. Could probably make a paste printer for $1500. -dave ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
gEDA-user: protoexpress.com and copper thieving
Darrell Harmon dlhar...@dlharmon.com wrote: I have used the no touch service from http://www.protoexpress.com They are in Sunnyvale, CA, and do good work. I like their deal, it's the best I have found so far for what I want. The only remaining concern I need to resolve before I settle on them as the recipient of my gerbers is the following: back in early 2007 DJ has posted the following on this list: protoexpress auto-adds copper thieving, which would mess up my isolation gaps (I've emailed them asking about it). Is copper thieving the trick whereby the fab adds little isolated copper squares in places where the customer's gerbers call for a complete clearing? Does DJ or anyone else here know if protoexpress still does that on their no touch service or not? My PCB has a section where the DSL circuit comes in from the phone company - as that's basically a phone line that can potentially have all kinds of nastiness on it, I prefer to have good isolation - hence copper thieving (if I understand the term correctly) would be undesirable in that area. MS ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: Handling odd solder paste shapes
On Thu, Jun 25, 2009 at 8:24 PM, DJ Delorie [1...@delorie.com wrote: Picoliters? All we need now is an inkjet printer that can print solder paste instead of ink. At Vicor we had a robot with a syringe that dispensed solder paste dots. (* jcl *) -- You can't create open hardware with closed EDA tools. [2]http://www.luciani.org References 1. mailto:d...@delorie.com 2. http://www.luciani.org/ ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: protoexpress.com and copper thieving
Is copper thieving the trick whereby the fab adds little isolated copper squares in places where the customer's gerbers call for a complete clearing? Yes. And no, I never got a reply from them about it. ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: Handling odd solder paste shapes
Actually, picoliters might not be the right unit. The right thing to do is let the user specify the unit in the file. Paste(... 450nl) ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
