Interior cutouts from seed/itead/etc...?

[Gridstop]

Has anyone had any luck getting interior cutouts from one of the Chinese/hk batch resellers? I've had a few different boards made and been totally satisfied, but there's definitely a communication barrier whenever I try to email and ask for something funny. But seed's store for the pcb entry even has a picture of a pcb with a cutout now, and I've heard of other people doing it in the past.

Do you think just include a separate dimension/outline layer that clearly shows the interior cutout? Just put it on the silkscreen with a big X in the middle? Put 4 drill hits in the corners and just cut it out myself with a coping saw?

Unfortunately, even if this is doable there's still no way to know the size of the milling bit they use as far as how tight the corners can/will be...

[8086]

They state in their requirements that they don't support board cutouts, don't they?

Weird. I thought they wouldn't do it at all.

[Gridstop]

Well they say they don't do slot/line drills. And they don't panelize. But I know specifically people in the seed and itead forums (itead forums appear to have been reset?) have mentioned getting cutouts before, but never elaborated when I asked for details.

[free_electron]

i do that all the time with iteadstudio. not a problem. What they don't do is put in break-off tabs so you can depanelise boards. that is a no-no. if the cutout is belonging to the project and not obviously a break tab then they have no problem. i did a board that had an isolation barrier underneath the optocouplers. no problemo.  same goes for slotted holes like for DC jacks. no problem there either.
and you can go really nuts with the contour as well .see my board in the jim williams pulse generator topic...

[Gridstop]

Ok so how do you actually do it? Separate outline layer?
Or just put it on a silkscreen/copper layer and then try to explain it in the comments/email?
Or can you produce some kind of actual milling data in the drill file? (Not sure what all different software can do.)

And the DC jack slots really surprises me since they say very clearly no line/slot holes.

[mamalala]

In Eagle i simply draw the cutout in the same dimension layer that the board outline is in. Just recently i did a project with a PCB that is to be mounted flat on a heatsink, and the FET is sitting in a cutout in the PCB to get contact to the heatsink. iTead had no problems with that. Attached an image of the PCB mounted on the heatsink, and how it looks in Eagle with only Top, Bottom and Dimension layer on.

Greetings,

Chris

[Gridstop]

So did you send the dimension layer as a separate gerber file then (project.dim ?), or just include that layer in one of the copper or silkscreen gerber files? I would think if it's part of one of the normal layers, they wouldn't really know that that line was an edge instead of a trace/silkscreen (unless it was a zero-width line or something? Maybe then they could tell.)

Sorry if this sounds obtuse, I'm just trying to be as specific as possible and you guys are like the 5th and 6th to say 'Sure you can do it' but then not say how to actually output the dimension layer from eagle/whatever in the final gerbers.

I don't want to sound ungreatful! I really appreciate the help.

[mamalala]

iTead says on their site to put it in at least one of the Gerber files, i.e. copper, silk, stop, etc. I put it in every Gerber, never had a problem. And yes, i use 0-width lines, since Eagle by default also uses that for the outline of a new board.

Greetings,

Chris

[Gridstop]

Thanks!