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How to put plated slot in the pad to be included into the Gerber file (for JLCPCB)?

Celsiuss

One of the Fabricators (JLCPCB) requires inclusion of the slots in the pad (which Allegro normally outputs in nc-route file) as lines in Gerber file for the board outline. Apparently they are extracting routing information for their router from this file. 

I am new to making slotted holes in the pads...

How to configure Allegro PCB 17.4 to include the route line in the gerber file? I thought that this is contained in Board Geometry/NCRoute_Path, but my file has nothing there. The pads are created as slotted pads in the padstack editor and the design produces correct *.rou file. What  should be done to display route in Board Geometry/NCRoute_Path?

Another question - *.rou file does not contain the tool size. How the fabricator learns the routing bit size from the *.drl and *.rou files?

I imagine that if the route path is included in Gerber file, the width of it will be reflected in Board Geometry/NCRoute_Path layer? 

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  • excellon1
    0

    Hi there, to answer your questions.

    First thing is there is no relationship between gerber information and NC Drill/Route information. The fabrication process are completely different.

    In allegro when you generate either NC or route information, there is no visual indication in allegro of what this info will look like. To view this info along
    with the gerber files you would need a gerber viewer or editor that also supports reading NC Drill & route files. Popular tools to read this info are Gerbtool, cam350 etc.

    More than likely whats going on is that JLCPCB is having difficulty reading the routing file info generated by allegro.

    Normally at board houses today they use the enhanced excellon data format or excellon 2 as it is known as far as I can recall. You would need to configure the NC Parameters to support this first before generating the NC Files.

    Under the NC Parameters config check the following boxes. Leading zero suppression and Enhanced Excellon Format. Verify that the following is checked too, Automatically create drill ncroutebits_auto.

    Generate both your NC Drill file and your routing file.

    A note on this. When you create a routing file .rou and if that format is not in the "Enhanced Excellon format" the result will be a routing path that is basically zero width.
    In the gerber editor this will not really represent the physical width of the tool needed to achieve the physical slot width. With Enhanced Excellon format the gerber editor
    will display the tool table correctly. Based on this the board house will use a suitable NC Router bit so as to route out the slot. Depending on the gerber editor the board house uses the gerber editor / Nc tool part may not be able to load the routing files if not output in enhanced excellon format.

    Lastly, when Allegro generates a tool path for the .rou file. The routing info is auto generated for you. This information is got from the slot in your padstack.

    Try that out and see if JLPCB can read your routing files and drill files correctly. My thinking is there should be no issues.

Reply
  • excellon1
    0

    Hi there, to answer your questions.

    First thing is there is no relationship between gerber information and NC Drill/Route information. The fabrication process are completely different.

    In allegro when you generate either NC or route information, there is no visual indication in allegro of what this info will look like. To view this info along
    with the gerber files you would need a gerber viewer or editor that also supports reading NC Drill & route files. Popular tools to read this info are Gerbtool, cam350 etc.

    More than likely whats going on is that JLCPCB is having difficulty reading the routing file info generated by allegro.

    Normally at board houses today they use the enhanced excellon data format or excellon 2 as it is known as far as I can recall. You would need to configure the NC Parameters to support this first before generating the NC Files.

    Under the NC Parameters config check the following boxes. Leading zero suppression and Enhanced Excellon Format. Verify that the following is checked too, Automatically create drill ncroutebits_auto.

    Generate both your NC Drill file and your routing file.

    A note on this. When you create a routing file .rou and if that format is not in the "Enhanced Excellon format" the result will be a routing path that is basically zero width.
    In the gerber editor this will not really represent the physical width of the tool needed to achieve the physical slot width. With Enhanced Excellon format the gerber editor
    will display the tool table correctly. Based on this the board house will use a suitable NC Router bit so as to route out the slot. Depending on the gerber editor the board house uses the gerber editor / Nc tool part may not be able to load the routing files if not output in enhanced excellon format.

    Lastly, when Allegro generates a tool path for the .rou file. The routing info is auto generated for you. This information is got from the slot in your padstack.

    Try that out and see if JLPCB can read your routing files and drill files correctly. My thinking is there should be no issues.

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