Altium: Create Centroid file for PCBA

[Psi]

So i'm getting some PCB's assembled by PCBway and they have asked if i can supply a Centroid file.

After playing around for 10min it seems a bit more complex than simply clicking an "export Centroid file" button.

Does anyone have any tutorial on this process in altium?
I had a google but couldn't find anything that useful.

(My Alitum version is 10.391, so not the latest.)

[DerekG]

So i'm getting some PCB's assembled by PCBway and they have asked if i can supply a Centroid file.

I think they are after the actual board dimensions. Place a thin line on the mechanical layer where you want them to mill out the circuit (or scour the boards if V-grooving).

Send them the Gerbers again, this time ticking "Add mechanical layer to Gerbers".

Always zip up your Gerbers & drill file into a single file before sending.

[mrpackethead]

Centroid data is the information that is used by the PNP machines, for placing parts.  Its an ascii file,  they do take several formats.

For example

 “10µF/0805?,”30.48?,”38.1?,”90.0?,”Bottom"

Part, X, Y, Rotation, Layer.

I'm not sure about version 10, beeen quite a while since i've used that.. but File > Assembly Outputs >Generate Pick and Place Files   is whats in version 17.. ( and i think its been like that for some time )

[Psi]

So i'm getting some PCB's assembled by PCBway and they have asked if i can supply a Centroid file.

I think they are after the actual board dimensions. Place a thin line on the mechanical layer where you want them to mill out the circuit (or scour the boards if V-grooving).

Send them the Gerbers again, this time ticking "Add mechanical layer to Gerbers".

Always zip up your Gerbers & drill file into a single file before sending.

na i dont think its PCB related its pick and place related.

Their exact words were
"Do you have centroid file to instruct us the position of every component?"

I've been googling and i think they are just after the standard pick and place csv file with all the location/rotation/designator data.
I've already supplied them this but i think they just missed it because it was .txt and not .csv

Altium mislead me into thinking there was some special "centroid" file, something that i'd never heard of before, due to it having a "export centroid" option.
No idea what it actually does, i cant get it to work.

This video was quite helpful

[Mikekoz13]

Well according to the video, right at the end, they say they can use ODB++ files. Simply generate that file and send it!!

[Psi]

That video is not from pcbway, it's just some random video i found on youtube that helped to explain that a centroid file is just a normal pick-n-place file.