Gerber output from SketchUp for circuit board design?
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Interesting. yes, I would guess this is the right foruk to post this kind of request.
Your circuit board design software (PCB Software?) does not work well enough to design circuit boards, so you want to use SU?
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It designs traditional circuit boards just fine. What I need, though, is a thin, rigid board with a complex pattern (not an electrical circuit) etched in metal on the surface. It has all the characteristics of a circuit board except the circuit. I can make the design in 5 minutes in SU, but it's going to take me over an hour in my PCB layout s/w since the latter doesn't have tools for making the kind of design I need.
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Ahh, interesting. Unfortunately I am not familiar with that file type, nor the specs of how it works. Is there a software that can convert ofther 3d file types into your gerber filetype?
Chris
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Do you have an example of this file-type [Gerber RS274X = http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerber_File#Usage_of_the_Gerber_Format and http://members.optusnet.com.au/eseychell/rs274xrevd_e.pdf ???], that you could zip [with an image of what it produces] and post here [or as a PM] ?
Then we could see how awkward it is to make a file like that - if it's binary aaargh! but if it's text like a dxf or obj file then it might be relatively easy
PS: It seems to me that http://www.artwork.com/gerber/stl2gbr/index.htm already makes STL into Gerber, and there are tools to export SUp to STL ?
or http://www.sonnetsoftware.com/support/sonnet-suites/dxftogerber.html takes DXF into Gerber, is 'free' and DXF out of SUp is also possible ?
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Thanks loads for the links, TIG. Unfortunately, I can't get usable output from the DXF to Gerber converter, and the STL to Gerber converter guys make you jump through so many hoops to get an eval version of the program (the normal price is $2K), it's not worth it. I'll just slog it our with my PCB s/w.
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OK
As I said, if you could supply a simple example SKP and a 'Gerber' file made from it, so that we can see what needs to be written... then perhaps making a script to do this would be possible... no promises, but without examples it's not going to happen...
It won't cost $2k... but it might cost a 'little' ?
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Thanks again, but I finished the job in my PCB layout s/w earlier today.
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OK.
But if you have need of a future tool then please ask again....PS: I just stumbled across this free software - http://www.fiberdownload.com/Download/21590/DipTrace
That seems to solve the making, export and printing of PCBs as you wanted.
Is this what you used in the end ?
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No. I used Eagle by CADsoft. I already had it as I occasionally need to make real PCBs. There was one element that had to be repeated 24 times at intervals of 15 degrees of rotation (I'd include a pic but I can't figure out how to attach or embed, only link, and it's not online). That's just not something you ever need to do in designing a PCB, hence the headache. Obviously a 5 second operation in SU, but with no way to get the design out in Gerber format, I just had to suck it up and carefully tweak each placement in Eagle. Took about an hour to figure out how to do it, then another hour to actually do it. Would've taken much longer for someone to write a script, plus some dough. If this was something I was going to need to do regularly, that would be another thing, but it was strictly a one-off requirement. Thanks again for your looking into it, though.
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@involute said:
No. I used Eagle by CADsoft. I already had it as I occasionally need to make real PCBs. There was one element that had to be repeated 24 times at intervals of 15 degrees of rotation (I'd include a pic but I can't figure out how to attach or embed, only link, and it's not online). That's just not something you ever need to do in designing a PCB, hence the headache. Obviously a 5 second operation in SU, but with no way to get the design out in Gerber format, I just had to suck it up and carefully tweak each placement in Eagle. Took about an hour to figure out how to do it, then another hour to actually do it. Would've taken much longer for someone to write a script, plus some dough. If this was something I was going to need to do regularly, that would be another thing, but it was strictly a one-off requirement. Thanks again for your looking into it, though.
Installation
Videos Note : the video show the old Sketchup plugin installation method. For the RBZ see below. Please check the path of your installation of Imagemagick and update it accordingly in eagleUp parameters. You can watch the videos in full screen for better comfort. Download and Installation To run eagleUp you need to download and…
Eagle meets SketchUp (eagleup.wordpress.com)
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