DFRobot PCB Service

I finished laying out my first board in Eagle last night, and I’m going to send the gerbers off to DFRobot tonight. I have run the DFRobot design rules check and don’t get any errors/warnings.

The DFRobot tutorial on exporting for their manufacturing isn’t clear to me on something though… they say “The job (gerb274x) of processor will just export Dimension,tPlace and tNames layer in your design. And it also wont export the bottom layer silk screen also. So you need to print the tValues layer and the bottom layer silk screen”

Well, I’m not concerned with a bottom layer silkscreen… but I would like to have some of the other silk screen layers like 51 tDocu printed. I’m assuming all I do is highlight the layers I want in the Cam Processor Sil screen CMP (menu seen in attachment);

Seems obvious, but I just wanted to check with people that have experience. And are there any other potential pitfalls I should be looking out for?

Thanks!

This is the cam file that Lauren at DFRobot uses which includes the bottom layer silk.

Correct about the added layers :wink:

This cam also includes the Drill info.

http://www.ingenuitymicro.com/media/525/DFRobot_Cam.zip

Also just include the Brd file form Eagle in your zip incase of any issues.

Outstanding, and much appreciated! I’m going to give my schematic a good logical once over and then get the files sent off later today.

Install cam350 and import gerbers to check

+1 on checking Gerbers look right - if they don’t there’s no hope they’ll look right in real life when you get them back :slight_smile:

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Due to a rare power outage, I wasn’t able to work on this last night. I used the CAM file from Justin to export everything (plus layer 51 tDocu in the Silk Screen CMP tab).

Then running CAM350 in demo mode, I used the auto import function and am having some problems. After clicking Finish on Auto Import, I get a warning saying there is an aperature size of 0, and it seems that the drill dots are scaled much bigger than everything else.

Any ideas?

@ FireyFate - Dont worry about the 10x drill size…
Some times mine are like that and other times not.
It isnt an issue for the factory

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Cool thanks again. And just to beg your help one more time, any thoughts on the aperture size warning? I’ve been doing some searching and so far the explanations sounded like it’s not a problem…

Found this on a different forum:

“The board outline may be of zero width. But many component’s silkscreen
are under 8 mil width and need to be adjusted by fixing the components
an after the fact ULP.”

@ FireyFate - Tiz not an issue - go forth and submit your design :wink:

Alrighty. Order is placed, design files are sent. You mentioned before telling Lauren you sent me… I’m assuming she receives the manufacturing emails so I wrote up a little note in the email.

It’s my second PCB layout, first in eagle, and most complex yet… let’s hope it works!

Sweet, yes manufacture emails got to Lauren, who I’m pretty sure is a bloke. If not some of our emails have been a tad sketchy :whistle:

Lol!

Ahhhh… I just checked my email and luckily I didn’t write “she” or “her” anywhere!

I mean, it would be an understandable mistake perhaps, but might work against any goodwill I got from the TinyCLR namedrop.

When I ordered my first pcb from dfrobot a few weeks ago, I had the same issue with the expanded drilling holes. So I looked for another gerber viewer and found that one:
http://mayhewlabs.com/webGerber/

It worked great for me, hope it helps someone too!

I use gerbv. gerbv — a Gerber (RS-274X) viewer - Browse Files at SourceForge.net

Sweet. I was less than impressed with CAM350, so I’ll be sure to check out those alternatives.

In other news, I did get a reply back from Lauren last night that my files had been checked and were going to manufacturing.

Being the not so patient person I am, I paid the extra 20 for 3 business day service… I also got the black color and full E-test. Under $70 for 10 PCBs is still a pretty nice deal!

@ FireyFate - lol

tip2 order on a Sunday so you don’t waste the weekend.

Yeaaaaah well… design was pretty much 99% done on Wednesday, but a freak power outage held me up until Thursday.

It did bum me out ordering right before the weekend… but waiting ‘til Sunday wouldnt have put the boards in my hands any faster!

@ FireyFate - too true, best you document the unboxing when Mr DHL arrives :wink:

Good tip :wink:

Sunday evening in US - is Monday morning in China