Hi all,
I joined JLCPCB as a technical support engineer for overseas customers in about October 2020.
Recently I noticed some customers received defective PCBs, issues are:
- Traces are completely missing for some designs.
- Rectangle pads with round corners are deformed.
- Silkscreen layers are completely lost for some designs.
- Some pads’ soldermask were lost.
I checked the Gerbers and see lots of them are in Gerber X2 format from KiCad. The issues are related to the work flow at JLCPCB, more details please move to: JLCPCB - strange issue with rounded rectangle pads + kicad nightly
Yesterday I discussed this with the head from the prototype manufacturing department. So we agreed to a decision: If CAM-A (the main CAM software used) can not import the user’s Gerbers and if it’s from KiCad and it’s Gerber X2. We need to ask the customer to re-plot the Gerbers in RS-274X format.
This morning, when I reached the office. I see tons of orders are in Gerber X2 format and they are stopped! I wrote an email template, so my colleagues can send it to customers to inform them to re-plot the file in RS-274X format.
I feel nervous as lots of orders will be delayed and maybe my method is overkill.
So I write this letter here to apologize for all the inconvenience.
By the way, JLCPCB is working on to support Gerber X2. We’ll announce it when it’s ready.
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Best regards,
Atommann