PDF to Gerber

[hanndoddi]

I put this post also in genaral chat but got low responce hope it's oki to try here to.

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Hello every one Þórarinn here from Iceland.

In short i am looking for a way to convert PDF to Gerber file.


I want to be able to take photos of PCB boards for exsaple (link below) and turn it into Gerber file for milling out PCB boards.

http://www.electronics-lab.com/projects/audio/001/index.html

I have no experiences with this so i was hoping i could get some advice with software and methods to use.

[amspire]

The image in the PDF is probably raster, and a gerber file is vector and for a simple board I would not even try and do the conversion.

Either etch your own PCB  using a transparency printout and photosensitive resist, or a laser printout and the toner transfer method (see frantone's recent thread https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/make-your-own-printed-circuit-boards-part-1-artwork-and-resist/?topicseen ) or better still, get one of the free PCB packages like diptrace, eagle or kicad and duplicate the design. - You can make it much better then and the gerber files will be generated by a program that understands the requirements of a PCB.

It will take a short time to learn to get started with the PCB package, but once you can use it, duplicating a layout is straightforward. The best way is to start with a schematic, but most PCB packages should allow you to go straight to the PCB layout package if you have any automatic design rule checking disabled.

With a PCB design package, you can add a groundplane which will probably make the board work better, and it will reduce the amount of copper that needs to be etched or milled. All a basic board like the one you linked to needs is some pads placed, and some tracks added. It shouldn't take long to do that in a PCB design package. You can import the layout as an image reference and lay the PCB over the top.

[free_electron]

if the pdf was generated from the cad package then it is most likely vector data.
in that case :
1) open the pdf file in Adobe illustrator : explode the group and remove the clipping are'as. remove all the crap you don't want.
2) make sure only one layer exists
3) export as DXF with correct scale.
4) import in a PCB CAM tool like camtastic
5) patch up the donuts to pads and set the track widths correct.
6) export gerber
7) decompile into netlist/pcb data
push into Altium PCB editor

yep it can be done . i have done it. but it requires some effort, time, ptience , and a bunch of tools (Illustrator and Altium Designer)

[ConnorGames]

A believe inkscape can do PDF->SVG , and it is free.

[JBeale]

I know this is an old thread. But if anyone else comes here with the same question, there is a tool that does exactly this. It is called PDF2Gerb. It is a Perl script, so you need Perl. http://swannman.github.io/pdf2gerb/