PCB order - company says my board has a short?

• PCB order - company says my board has a short?
  Posted by somuchtyler on 07 Apr, 2017 16:11
• Hey guys, just wondering what might be the matter. I made a PCB in CircuitMaker and the company says my board has a short..
  
  "Hi.As the below,your PCB has a short-line.Because each layers has silk screen,it cause the short problem. So please you check and fix."
  

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  What exactly are they saying? I am guessing the silk screen will cause a short between the routing?
• #1 Reply
  Posted by dimkasta on 07 Apr, 2017 16:19
• It seems that the rectangle around the parts that should only appear on the silk screen layer, appears on copper layers as well
• #2 Reply
  Posted by whollender on 07 Apr, 2017 16:19
• They're saying that the gerber files for the copper layers appear to have the silkscreen shapes included. 
  
  This doesn't mean that the silkscreen itself will short anything out, it just means that the settings you used to generate the gerbers accidentally included the silkscreen drawings in the copper layer outputs.
  
  I'm not familiar with CircuitMaker, but, in most applications, there are a bunch of settings that control how the gerbers are exported.  Usually you can control which application layers (annotations, routes, pads, etc) are included in each gerber file output.
• #3 Reply
  Posted by somuchtyler on 07 Apr, 2017 16:21
• Quote from: whollender on 07 Apr, 2017 16:19

  They're saying that the gerber files for the copper layers appear to have the silkscreen shapes included.
  

  
  I just realized that's exactly what they are saying, thank you!!
• #4 Reply
  Posted by TiN on 07 Apr, 2017 16:27
• Think of making PCB like printing on paper.
  
  But instead of ink dots on paper , you have copper metal. So whatever you print on each layer - will be metal on same sheet.
  One gerber layer - one "sheet of paper" which makes your PCB.
  
  So on metal layers you must have only stuff need to be in copper. Silkscreens, assembly layers, drill holes - all go "special" non-metal sheets.
  If you put everything in one drawing and print it - you will get everything in copper  And on your board it means everything become shorted in nice artistic blob, hence that's what fab told you.