PCB Manufacturing Help Needed

[chris2006]

Hi All

I have sent gerber files to a company to manufacture PCBs and they have come back with this

" Our engineer checked your gerber file. And, it's a working gerber.
But, we also need your original gerber file for production "

should the working gerber be all they need or can I convert these into manufacturing files ?

[Rerouter]

The question doesnt really make sense with the limited context,

Are you sure they are not asking about a layer you have forgotten to add?

In general the gerber files you provide is what you want made and is the "Production Gerbers"

As they are asking for gerbers it also sounds like they are not asking for the original design files, but for a clarification, or something that was not included. e.g. providing 2 silkscreen layers, but 1 copper layer may confuse a board house even if its a single sided PCB

[chris2006]

Hi

Thanks for the reply

I modified the original gerber to remove the some of the silk screen, could this be causing the problem ?

[Rerouter]

I would say yes, I do not know how you modified it, but it may have changed that one file to not be supported by there software.

Can you edit it in the design files, and re-export it

If not, can you give them the original and ask to edit it to what you desire? (There tools allow them to edit your files, you may even be able to ask for an edited copy back)

[chris2006]

Here's what I have These are in .txt all of them.

   

• 2rl
  
      bl
  
      bo
  
      bs
  
      drl
  
      ko
  
      ko2
  
      tl
  
      to
  
      ts

Viewmate deluxe was used to import, remove a bit of text from the silk screen and saved again.

in altium & viewmate opens the files and you can see everything layers etc fine but what is the "original file" they're after? because all i have is the files listed above.

[Rerouter]

Again, can you not edit the silkscreen in your cad package, If your using a cheap pcb fab, a number of them use an older non genuine copy of software that has compatibility bugs that cad manufacturers have worked around on export. while it may show fine for you, it may be garbled on the software they use for internal production.

[chris2006]

I'm getting in touch to ask them what software they're using as it could be that reason or they just don't understand that 
the "b" is bottom, "t" is top; "o" is overlay, "s" is soldermask, "l" is copper layer, "ko" are keepout, the drl/2rl are likely NC drill files ("excellon")

[Rerouter]

You would make an excellent politician, So many questions dodged for an X/Y issue.

[chris2006]

I'm sorry I didn't mean to avoid answering any questions, i'm just a bit clueless. The files were made by a third party who i no longer have dealings with and I'm a bit over my head.

When you say edit silkscreen do you mean remove one of the layers which you said might be confusing them?

I appreciate the help a lot.

[Rerouter]

That silkscreen layer you edited may have added data that is not supported by there software, or may have been flagged simply because it was different from the others,

When i say they can edit it, I mean they can tweak your silkscreen if that is the issue, they already do it to add things like an identifier to your board. e.g. remove that bit of text

(my spidey senses tells me this is a creators name or a copy-write, but I'll overlook that for now)

[chris2006]

Nothing like that, totally above board but my company name was on it and as I'm sending to china I wanted to keep it low key.

[chris2006]

You explanation makes sense especially if I edited using the newest software. I will find out what software they use and if not i'll just have to hope the unedited gerber files are correct.

[vipcircuit.com]

Hi, factory usually needs the original gerber files to do compensation and optimization,such as your original design line is 6mil, if the file you sent to supplier is 6.6mil, it means is a working gerber( used for production),suppliers will be confused,because they don't know what steps and changes have been edited. Every manufacturer's engineering is different,so must use original gerber( design gerber) to do.

[Gibson486]

Just give them the unedited files and tell them what your intent was. They have the ability to edit gerbers on their own.