Electronics > Eagle

Help creating gerber files

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M0UKD:
Hi all.

I have a small circuit which I would like to get a few PCB's manufactured for. It is the first time I have done this, I usually use photo etching, which is why I'm unsure about all these layers! I just want the boards, I will mount the components myself.

The board is fairly simple. I want everything single sided and SMD.

These are the layers I want to use.

Top: where the copper should go.
Dimension: where the board should be cut
tPlace: My silkscreen (Is this correct?)
Holes: Marks the centre of the drill holes

The main question I have is what stops the solder mask going over my connection pads and component pads?

I'd appreciate any help. The BRD file is at http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4958982/Keyer.brd

Thanks, John.

bfritz:
In eagle, when you define the pads for the component footprints, the solder mask is defined as a stepback from the pad.  This is shown for the top of the PCB in the tStop layer.

When sending your board to a fab house, you will need to supply a gerber for the solder mask.  I believe the standard CAM processor for eagle outputs this layer as an .stc file.

Your board producer will also probablly prefer an excellon drill file, rather than a gerber for the hole locations.  Eagle produces this as a .drd file.

Look in the eagle documentation under "CAM Processor" and you will find descriptions of the various layers, and how they are used.  The best thing to do, is to ask your board manufacturer what files they need.  Some who are use to dealing with Eagle, will acually prefer if you just send them your board file, and they will produce the gerbers and other info they need.

PStevenson:

there are walk throughs on youtube, I had such bloody difficulties when I first started using PCB programs and the difficulty was the GERBER generation because of the various files you need to generate but as soon as you do it a couple of times you'll get it, but definitely look for walk-through videos because it is easier seen than read if you get me

ShaunLeeClarke:
I used the following tutorials:


Included in them is gerber file generation - hope this helps (I'm a newbie too!).

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