Difficulty with PCBWay requirements

Manufacturing
1

I’m a rank beginner at PCB design. I’ve run my simple project through the DRC with flying colors, and have uploaded several times to PCBWay unsucsessfully. Here is the message I get from them:
Failed reason:

Incomplete files. Please make sure to include all the required files, like Keepout,Soldermask,Silkscreen,Copper ,Drill layers, etc.;

I’ve been through both Kicad and PCB way on line help tutorials but haven’t figured out how to resolve this. I appreciate any and all guidance.
-Damon Bostrom

2

That message looks like quite generic.

What did you send to them? KiCad can generate a set of Gerber files with just a few mouse clicks. Each file is one layer of the set. Apart from the Gerbers, you also need to generate drill files (both PTH and NPTH) in a separate step. Recently, the capability to generate other output formats have also been added to KiCad.

3

I sent all the layers as .gbr files including the two .drl files in a zipped file as per the instructions a few times making some changes to the default that I thought might address the issue indicated by thier reply. No luck. Maybe I should try a different manufacturer?

4

IGNORE: My CAM files are called .grb, not .gbr

5

That’s odd, the plotter saves them as .grb, e.g “NanoVias-B_Courtyard.gbr”.

6

What? You’re still mixing up the spelling. Please be exact.

7

I copied and pasted the name in quotes from the file that Kicad created using default settings. I guess I’ll manually rename them and resubmit and see what happens.

8

Please don’t; my mistake. The correct extension is indeed .gbr

9

Yes, I just double checked, ‘incomplete files’ is what I get from PCBWay, but they seem okay in the gerber viewer. I dunno, this is the first time I tried to get a PCB manufactured.

10

Post the list of files you are zipping and sending.

11

I plotted all of them, even adhesives which I’m not using.

12

That’s great, but it’s not what I asked for.
Please post the list of files here - just copy and paste the file names.

13

Go to
https://jlcpcb.com/
and upload and get a free quote. Probably cheaper than pcbway (I use both, but jlc more often).

2 Likes
14

I think I resolved the problem, the online help resource was very obsolete, I chatted with PCBWay and they sent me a more current one, I changed the parameters and am standing by…

15

Thanks! I’ll check it out!

16

Thanks for the help! Got it resolved.

17

Can you explain in detail what you had to do to resolve this. Someone else might have the same issue.

1 Like
18

Sure! When I looked for an online resource, the help for Kicad 4 came up, and of course it was obsolete. When I finally got someone at PCBWay to chat, she sent me the tutorial for Kicad 7 which worked fine.

https://www.pcbway.com/helpcenter/generate_gerber/How_to_Generate_Gerber_and_Drill_Files_in_KiCad_7_0.html

19

There is a plugin in KiCAD that exports your project straight to PCBWay. The order page will pop up with your files sumbitted. You need to configure how you want your PCBs to be done and place the order. At the back end you will see approved design and so on. If something is not correct you can contact the support or if they find something then they will contact you.

The direct export happens from the PCB Editor. Once you activated the ‘PCBWay plug-in for KiCad’ in the main KiCad project window menu, Tools->Plugin And Content Marager window
After activating the plugin you will see a green PCBWay button in the menu bar in the PCB Editor.

I hope you find this helpful.
I only put my orders through this way and at PCBWay I check the order and design at the back end.

20

Cool! I was hoping that I would stumble upon someyhing like this! Thanks!