Problems with altium generated NC drill file.

[markus.dnd]

Hello again.

After working with altium for a year, i got myself a new interesting problem.
The fab gave me an error report that i am unable to find with altium tools.
Even the nc drill file does not show anything out of the ordinary (checks etc are all fine).

does anyone have experience with cam350 (which seems to be the software that fab uses) and can give me a hind about the error in the attachment ?

I am absolutely clueless... no info online what so ever and I have no idea what to do with this error...

[tszaboo]

By the looks of it you maybe created a 0 mm hole on the board?

[markus.dnd]

Not that i know of, but this is a good place to start.
I will update as soon as i find something.

EDIT:

Nope, nothing. Drill file report is ok. It has quite many different sizes but smallest is 0.3mm hole as is standard for that specific fab.

[Rufus]

Even the nc drill file does not show anything out of the ordinary (checks etc are all fine).

The report is about a gerber aperture file - nothing to do with drills.

Your board probably has zero sized pads or tracks somewhere or something that rounds down to zero.

[tszaboo]

I'm thinking the same, something must be 0 size. You should check the board design for this, use the PCB list, that is really the only way (V W P L on the PCB view).

[markus.dnd]

Ok, I tested the function on my hobby projects. I wonder how I have not heard of this before.

Anyway, since I am not at work anymore I can continue on this problem tomorrow.

[markus.dnd]

I have still found nothing.

The factory said that the problem is double aperture. They also said that they fixed the problem. I still am clueless.

Will continue research on this to find the actual reason for the problem.

Thank you guys for replying. I have learned quite few things about altium by now.

[free_electron]

Double aperture means you have two vias or two pads stacked on top of each other.
And CAM350 ? No serious board house uses that crap.

[DerekG]

Double aperture means you have two vias or two pads stacked on top of each other.

Correct. Remember this can also happen if you're a bit sloppy designing a library component. Altium sometimes needs a screen refresh (F5) to actually display everything placed on the board. Without the screen refresh, you may lose some items that make up a component (on the screen only), thereby leading you to place another item (a 2nd pad in this case).

Altium have got better at this in later versions, but it is still possible. Some of this may relate to how Altium interacts with your video card of course.

[Rufus]

Double aperture means you have two vias or two pads stacked on top of each other.

Correct.

Two pads or vias stacked would produce a plot with a flash the size of the larger - no issue at all. They wouldn't be happy about two holes but the sceenshot indicates a problem with the aperture file not drill file.

That said a zero size aperture is the easiest thing in the world to plot with, maybe Altium will generate zero sized apertures for example when -ve mask expansion exactly tents a via and other CAM packages plot it correctly instead of barfing.

[markus.dnd]

For now I got the problem sorted out. Still a little mystique for me, but it works.

free_electron, why would no serious board house use CAM350? As far as my board house capabilities are, they are best for the buck (locally) They can handle everything except flex pcb. Also if there are problems, I can just drive there and use their Xray machine etc-etc.