:: trying to understand gerber to gcode export :: (:P)

Re: :: trying to understand gerber to gcode export :: (:P)

redreprap — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 06:27:38 -0400

the end product is gcode. i was trying to find an optimal way to get to gcode. i was too noob then LOL !

anyway i found a few ways, the manual ways from raster to vector to gcode, and then there was also the direct tool which now seems to work well.
[3roomlabs.blogspot.sg]
and the PCB2Gcode for EAGLE

so now i have 4 ways to get to a somewhat final gcode using 2 types of schematic start point :D
the manual edit rasterizing methods are quite interesting

NoobMan Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> If dxf is what you want, why dont you plot the
> board directly as dxf? Plot - choose format .dxf?
> Is that not up to scale?

Re: :: trying to understand gerber to gcode export :: (:P)

NoobMan — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 06:23:34 -0400

If dxf is what you want, why dont you plot the board directly as dxf? Plot - choose format .dxf? Is that not up to scale?

Re: :: trying to understand gerber to gcode export :: (:P)

redreprap — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 23:16:35 -0400

woot looks like scaling problem is now solved with a nice vectorizing software (magic tracer). so the workflow from KiCad to Gcode is solved on the software coding side it seems :D (http://3roomlabs.blogspot.sg/2013/03/022-further-experiments-with-magic.html). the flexible scaling option enables any size convertible to scale (limited to your screen resolution, cos the PCB trace is first obtained through a initial screen capture).

i hope somebody did benefit from all these KiCad digging (:P), now ima go have a KitCad ... i mean KitKat

meanwhile, i have started to learn EAGLE. This EAGLE is a beast just waiting to SKYNET the world !

Re: :: trying to understand gerber to gcode export :: (:P)

redreprap — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 13:06:04 -0400

looks like no choice, to try eagle 2 gerber ...

o my .. layer 254 = cooling !(:P)

Re: :: trying to understand gerber to gcode export :: (:P)

Traumflug — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 08:17:49 -0400

Looks like KiCAD isn't up to speed with G-code export, yet. But I guess you seek for this trouble, so have fun enjoying it.

Re: :: trying to understand gerber to gcode export :: (:P)

redreprap — Sun, 24 Mar 2013 16:06:35 -0400

wooot ....

i have just tested a few standard lengths and found the ratio of KiCad to Gcode scaling. (tu)

1mm = 72pixels. KiCad has its own standard internal scaling to components as a standard. the internal scale if printing from PDFcreator can be adjusted. in this case, in the metric(inch) usage, Kicad printing via PDFcreator can be set to a DPI of 1829dpi per inch (it is actually exacly 1828.8, calculate from 72 pixel per mm convert to inch). this will yield the nearly 1:1 scale required to do a nearly flawless scaled output from the printed raster to be usable in vectorising it and ultimately gcoding it. (do note that at about A3 print size, the saved TIFF file is over 900MB ! so choose your right print size)

if your mill machine have a accuracy of 0.2mm, then in terms of pixel error, it is 14.4 pixels. normally if carefully done, the transfer of raster image carries a error of about 1-5 pixels (0.07mm error). overall, by aligning a measuring scale to the screen grab, it is possible to reduce or fixate this error rate to a minimum.

*sigh* ... now all i need is to finish my machine (:P)

sidenote : a few folks on Kicad yahoo groups are telling me to dump the gerber export of kicad directly out to a program call gerber to gcode. however, inspecting the gerber with a app call CNC viewer, if i am seeing correctly, a mill path would also cut up the pads and isolate it from the tracks, thats not what we want right? so does any 1 of you use direct gerber dump and convert that to gcode to use as a direct PCB milling code? or there is a fair amount of editing of the gerber so that it is milling friendly?

Re: :: trying to understand gerber to gcode export :: (:P)

redreprap — Sun, 24 Mar 2013 13:19:40 -0400

if anyone have a really huge PCB layout in kicad, im willing to have a go at rendering it to gcode for fun.

Re: :: trying to understand gerber to gcode export :: (:P)

redreprap — Sat, 23 Mar 2013 12:44:44 -0400

yea i saw gEDA, didnt try it ... yet. it does gcode to the actual scale internally? or there is a need to calibrate that scale for first run?

i think i am getting it. do have a read (KiCad to Gcode)

and most importantly, im not sure if the Gcode is legit since i dont have any machine to try it lol.

Re: :: trying to understand gerber to gcode export :: (:P)

Traumflug — Sat, 23 Mar 2013 08:12:14 -0400

gEDA/PCB has a reasonable well working G-code exporter. Works with polygons, but no Voronoi-type milling.

Re: :: trying to understand gerber to gcode export :: (:P)

redreprap — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 15:36:04 -0400

same schematic, i had another go. diff layout

is xxx.ngc files even readable by marlin ?

Re: :: trying to understand gerber to gcode export :: (:P)

redreprap — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 09:25:21 -0400

hmmm wad a bummer

tnx for the input. i hope not to touch programming, that would really branch me off into oblivon, my brains are so small, i doubt i can handle more LOL. i think my current obsessive curiosity is to find a probable workflow out of what is available. there seems to be alot, and flipping around between linux and XP has been great so far with some help from VMware.

n yes i think when kicad tries to export gerber, dxf, etc. alot of the included data are overly complex for converters to use, round pads, square pads, gnd plane, etc overlapping lines or vectors seem to confuse converters to hell.

i ended up having a strange episode of conversion wildhunt ... over 48 hours ... i just have to kill this curiosity LOL

kicad --> gerber --> gcode
kicad --> geber --> eagle --> gcode
kicad --> dxf -- gcode

and then ... i got to this. so i can hide what i do not want to see graphically, so it turns out, photoshop becomes my PCB inspection tool (i was hoping kicad would have something really great, within it gerberness, or perhaps i missed something? i am just about 6 hours old on kicad, and 30minutes old on gcodes LOL !!! )

kicad --> raster --> dxf --> gcode

but then i have no way of telling if the gcode is good lol, i have zero operation experience with gcode atm. i can see from some of the codes it will be great for a machine suited for it. can anyone comment is this a possible way to mill PCB?

i am just curious since i have never tried prototyping pcb from gcoding, obviously there are no mainstream factories using this process, otherwise it will be very much kicad -- direct to gcode wouldnt it?

(:P) n im still looking

Re: :: trying to understand gerber to gcode export :: (:P)

Traumflug — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 06:00:49 -0400

Exception in thread "AWT-EventQueue-0" java.lang.UnsupportedOperationException: TBD polygon mode

TBD = To Be Defined = not yet implemented. You have to either implement it (by writing Java code) or get rid of the polygons. For example, gEDA/PCB exports rectangular pins as polygons (failure), round pins not (works). Also, these commonly used "ground planes" are not useful for PCB milling.

Re: :: trying to understand gerber to gcode export :: (:P)

redreprap — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 04:45:08 -0400

tried again after ubuntu update, this time, the browse works. but right after you selected that. buttons get greyed out in the app (:P)

Re: :: trying to understand gerber to gcode export :: (:P)

redreprap — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 23:28:28 -0400

well then i finally got a copy of linux to work. and some visolates ...

but i ran into this

Comment at line 1: (created by PCBNEW (2013-03-19 BZR 4004)-stable) date 22-Mar-13 09:25:53
Comment at line 3: Gerber Fmt 3.4, Leading zero omitted, Abs format
Comment at line 8: APERTURE LIST
Comment at line 18: APERTURE END LIST
Exception in thread "AWT-EventQueue-0" java.lang.UnsupportedOperationException: TBD polygon mode
at visolate.simulator.Simulator.setPosition(Simulator.java:232)
at visolate.parser.Parser.CoordinateDCode(Parser.java:351)
at visolate.parser.Parser.DCode(Parser.java:316)
at visolate.parser.Parser.Code(Parser.java:219)
at visolate.parser.Parser.Input(Parser.java:98)
at visolate.Visolate.load(Visolate.java:723)
at visolate.Visolate.loadFile(Visolate.java:698)
at visolate.Visolate$2.actionPerformed(Visolate.java:144)
at javax.swing.AbstractButton.fireActionPerformed(AbstractButton.java:2012)
at javax.swing.AbstractButton$Handler.actionPerformed(AbstractButton.java:2335)
at javax.swing.DefaultButtonModel.fireActionPerformed(DefaultButtonModel.java:404)
at javax.swing.DefaultButtonModel.setPressed(DefaultButtonModel.java:259)
at javax.swing.plaf.basic.BasicButtonListener.mouseReleased(BasicButtonListener.java:252)
at java.awt.Component.processMouseEvent(Component.java:6288)
at javax.swing.JComponent.processMouseEvent(JComponent.java:3267)
at java.awt.Component.processEvent(Component.java:6053)
at java.awt.Container.processEvent(Container.java:2045)
at java.awt.Component.dispatchEventImpl(Component.java:4649)
at java.awt.Container.dispatchEventImpl(Container.java:2103)
at java.awt.Component.dispatchEvent(Component.java:4475)
at java.awt.LightweightDispatcher.retargetMouseEvent(Container.java:4633)
at java.awt.LightweightDispatcher.processMouseEvent(Container.java:4297)
at java.awt.LightweightDispatcher.dispatchEvent(Container.java:4227)
at java.awt.Container.dispatchEventImpl(Container.java:2089)
at java.awt.Window.dispatchEventImpl(Window.java:2587)
at java.awt.Component.dispatchEvent(Component.java:4475)
at java.awt.EventQueue.dispatchEventImpl(EventQueue.java:675)
at java.awt.EventQueue.access$300(EventQueue.java:96)
at java.awt.EventQueue$2.run(EventQueue.java:634)
at java.awt.EventQueue$2.run(EventQueue.java:632)
at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
at java.security.AccessControlContext$1.doIntersectionPrivilege(AccessControlContext.java:105)
at java.security.AccessControlContext$1.doIntersectionPrivilege(AccessControlContext.java:116)
at java.awt.EventQueue$3.run(EventQueue.java:648)
at java.awt.EventQueue$3.run(EventQueue.java:646)
at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
at java.security.AccessControlContext$1.doIntersectionPrivilege(AccessControlContext.java:105)
at java.awt.EventQueue.dispatchEvent(EventQueue.java:645)
at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpOneEventForFilters(EventDispatchThread.java:275)
at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEventsForFilter(EventDispatchThread.java:200)
at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEventsForHierarchy(EventDispatchThread.java:190)
at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEvents(EventDispatchThread.java:185)
at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEvents(EventDispatchThread.java:177)
at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.run(EventDispatchThread.java:138)

the version 3.1.1 does not browse. i am assuming that i have to use a old version of ubuntu?

:: trying to understand gerber to gcode export :: (:P)

redreprap — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 21:55:53 -0400

hello folks, after some diggin around in cyberspace, i managed to find a program call CNC viewer

from the viewer, i could see that the gerber file contains milling paths for the PCB i made

i also managed to get a converter "pygerber2gcode". but it doesnt seem to be converting correctly. the gcode output file seems to only indicate a drill run instead lol.

the jpeg pic depicts what the PCB should have been.

has anyone tried to use this before? could it be the color track detection?
cheers (:P)