| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| jimD |
Posted - 26 Mar 2015 : 02:20:25
I just had a 4 layer board come back from the manufacturer and they dropped the middle layers. They never called and asked questions. They just printed a two layer board.
When I called to ask questions and figure out how they can make it right they claimed they were confused by the stackup and thought these were useless layers.
EasyPC generated 5 copper gerber layers. The two powerplanes were negatives (and they thought this was strange). I also ran one track on the Vcc powerplane and this created another gerber.
This company uses an online upload for gerbers and I just assumed since the file names are very specific and these guys see so many gerber files that they would know to merge them. This is a board house in the USA, they have been in business 20yrs, and the owner said he has never heard of easypc and he thinks that is my problem.
I recognize I really need to include a readme detailing the stackup. But I am wondering if I did something outside acceptable standards by having negative powerplanes and requiring gerbers to be merged?
I really like easypc, I think it is much more intuitive then eagle. The part creator wizard is the best. A friend recently called me and was talking about all his favorite features in Altium... features that easypc does great. The problem is easypc seems to export things a little different and I don't know the industry standards yet. I'm a new designer and some people don't take me seriously when they hear the name of the software I use. |
| 9 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Iain Wilkie |
Posted - 27 Mar 2015 : 16:13:31
Totally agree with 636steve.
You want to pull the manufacturer up on this .... its basically their fault.
Iain
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| 636steve |
Posted - 27 Mar 2015 : 11:06:47
Hi, I cannot comment on the use of powerplanes and the output created because like Iain I use copper pours.
The one alarming thing I find from your post is that your pcb manufacturer didn't process 2 of the layers because they did not understand them without contacting yourself first.
On the odd occasion I have rushed a board through and made a silly mistake in my output my pcb manufacturers have always raised a query as to whether that is what i had intended thus averting a costly mistake.
As your manufaturer has been in business for 20yrs I would have thought they would have at least raised a query to check.
I have used several manufacturers for boards and none have ever had problems with the EasyPC gerber output. Looks like your manufacturer is blaming the software for his own mistake. |
| Iain Wilkie |
Posted - 26 Mar 2015 : 21:50:16
JimD,
The problem was discovered years ago, Numberone would have known about it. Wether it was fixed or not I cannot say. I always use the copper pour so would be unable to establish if the problem stil exists.
I cannot recommend anything in the way of books or courses. I myself am self taught but I am an electronics design engineer so I have a head start on some of the basics of circuit layout. Apart from that it's simply experiance gained over doing hundreds of boards.
I don't mind having a "quick look" at your design or gerbers to see if there is anything "obviously" wrong from a basic layout point of view, but you may need to wait on a response if I am busy on other work.
Iain |
| jimD |
Posted - 26 Mar 2015 : 19:13:16
Iain,
I know this is totally unrelated to my problem with the manufacturer. I was just wondering if numberone knew as I would be happy to reproduce it and take some screenshots so they might fix it in the next software update.
In terms of my manufacturer being confused and dropping the middle layers I was wondering if you had any recommendation for books I could read or a course that could be taken.
Electrical engineering degree programs in the US don't cover much in the way of pcb layout and working with a manufacturer. Maybe I could even hire someone such as yourself to go through a design with me and help make it presentable. |
| Iain Wilkie |
Posted - 26 Mar 2015 : 16:24:19
JimD,
Your problem has nothing to do with the isolated land problem I described. All I am saying is when doing internal planes use the copper pour approach and not the powerplane approach. Your specific problem seems to be with your manufacturer misunderstanding your gerbers.
Iain |
| jimD |
Posted - 26 Mar 2015 : 15:46:24
Thanks for the reply, good to know. I will keep an eye out for it, I always review the gerbers before sending off.
Does NumberOne already know, or should I replicate the isolated island and send it in to support? |
| Iain Wilkie |
Posted - 26 Mar 2015 : 15:31:43
The problem with the powerplane method is there is a possibility of copper becoming isolated and this is not thrown up as an error when doing the nomal design checks. What can happen is if you will have vias peppering the plane but depending on the clearance set for via to plane clearance and if the vias are close enough for the plane copper to be unable to flow between vias, then this can cause isolated lands of copper that should be connected to the plane. Imagine for instance set of vias forming the 4 sides of a square, if the clearances do not allow copper to flow between the vias, you will end up with a square of isolated copper sitting inside the square formed by the vias. There is no check for this !
Conversely if you use copper pours you can see these instantly if you select highlight isolated copper, but more importantly if you run a connectivity check it will be reported as an error.
Iain |
| jimD |
Posted - 26 Mar 2015 : 15:15:05
Hi Iain
Can you elaborate on what the problem with the powerplane feature is? I am much happier using it than copper pours because it will show net connectivity without having to regenerate the pour area with every change.
But if it is a flawed feature, I will stop using it. |
| Iain Wilkie |
Posted - 26 Mar 2015 : 11:12:45
I never used the "powerplane" feature of EasyPC, I always use copper pours to create inner planes. There is a potential problem with the powerplane generation that I will not go into at the moment however it's not associated with gerber creation. I find it staggering that your pcb manufacturer did not question the inner layers.
Of course what you should do is check your gerbers in a gerber viewer to see if the files appear as you would expect them before sending for manufacture.
I would add that I have done literally 100's of boards in EasyPC and have had absolutely no problems with the gerbers produced. I have had up to 12 layer boards done without any issue, but as I mention I have always used the copper pour feature to produce inner planes.
Iain |
