I uploaded a somewhat complicated geometry via DXF from Autocad. The line thickness right now is 0.05 mm by default. When I reduce the line thickness, I see that the edge cuts do NOT connect.
(
I was told that this may be causing errors in my Gerber, specifically this weird circle that shows up (see picture below, it’s the circle with the thick gray line…I don’t want that). I saw a thread regarding this weird Gerber error and troubleshooted with all of the suggestions but none of them helped (Strange circles in the gerber).
Any suggestions on how to:
get rid of the circle
connect my edge cut lines (the grid size is at it’s smallest and I can’t move the geometry without messing it up)
It is not really clear what I’m looking at . Is it a footprint, the whole board? If it is the whole board where are your edge cuts? Even if they are not connected you would still have your unconnected edge cut lines in gerbers as well. To paraphrase Dr. Seuss: “A line is a line, no matter how small” You can have a single line in your edge cut layer and you will get a single line in your gerbers on the edge cut layer. As far as your circle goes, which layer is your circle at? Do you see it only in gerbers or it is present in PCBNew as well?
I’ve never heard that, I would be somewhat skeptical of that. Perhaps it is possible, but unless Edge cuts is causing some other problem, I would look for other reasons for the cause of the circle.
There is no handy tool on KiCad to fix Edge Cuts apart from the standard drawing tools, if you created it in Autocad it would be logical to fix it in Autocad.
The gerber file is of the whole board. The edge cuts are the light gray lines within the big circle (the yellow lines in the top picture are the edge cuts in PCBnew).
I don’t see the giant circle anywhere except the the Gerber file. Looking at the layers, the circle is on every layer of my gerber (“Profile, NP”, “Copper, L1, Top”, “Legend, Top”)
I realized my autocad has some errors so I’m going to try and fix that and see if that is my issue.
I still don’t get it. The light grey lines encompasses four separate contours! I realize that it is not being represented properly but still, board edges should be a single closed contour with all the footprints inside of it. If you have any routing lines in your design that should be done on a separate layer, not on board edges! The reason you are seeing circle on all gerber layers is probably because you didn’t check “Exclude PCB edges from other layers” option during gerber generation. The easiest way to fix your unconnected lines would be to edit line properties directly and make sure that coordinates of the end of one line and beginning of the other are the same.
I didn’t say it can’t be done. I said it shouldn’t be done. Board outline is a “standard” feature for any board. A lot of manufacturers, however, don’t consider routing and slots to be “standard” and charge extra for any routing to be done (or certain discounts don’t apply if there is routing or slots). Besides it is a readability issue as well. If I want to see a single layer with a board outline, I don’t need to see all the routing lines on top of it.
[quote=“ArtG, post:5, topic:9467”]
. . . If you have any routing lines in your design that should be done on a separate layer, not on board edges! . . . [/quote]
The board house my current employer uses prefers to see all milling and routing - board outline, cutouts, slots, etc - on a single layer (and not on any other layer).
On the layer I use for dimensions and general fabrication notes, I routinely place a text object saying “CUTOUT”, in the middle of all internal cutouts.
Hey, mr. I like to argue just for the heck of it. I was just thinking that I haven’t seen you jumping on my case in a while. Well just for you - That’s a perfect reason to put it on a separate layer![quote=“1.21Gigawatts, post:8, topic:9467”]
manufacturer will require it
[/quote]
If you just read the thread selectively - here is a recap for you: there are plenty of manufacturers who require routing to be placed on a separate layer. REQUIRE! It is like “not require” but opposite
[quote=“ArtG, post:7, topic:9467”]
. . . . Board outline is a “standard” feature for any board. A lot of manufacturers, however, don’t consider routing and slots to be “standard” and charge extra for any routing to be done (or certain discounts don’t apply if there is routing or slots). . . . [/quote]
This is true in some cases. I don’t think there is a “standard” or “customary practice” among board houses on this. (It wasn’t very long ago, and in some places may still be true, that any departure from a strictly rectangular board outline was a “non-standard”, extra cost, option.) KiCAD gives you the freedom to comply with whatever process the board fabricator may prefer; it falls on the board designer to become familiar with what those practices are, and to use KiCAD accordingly.
Well I’m sure you don’t need any help figuring out why.
Sorry, not just that I disagree, but you’re simply wrong. They charge extra for traces that are thinner than “standard” too, I suppose you put them on a separate layer too?
I have the read the thread in it’s entirety, no recap required.
You keep saying that but can you name one? Just one?
I was not referring to strictly rectangular as a “standard” option. I haven’t seen anybody giving you grief for complicated board outline. What quite often occur additional charges is internal (to the board outline) routing or slots.
Your discussion is not really helping to solve the original problem.
I think by now everyone has noticed that different manufacturers might have different requirements on how this can be communicated. @drumdude92 make sure you talk to your board house how they want internal cutouts communicated. if they want it on a separate layer to the edge cuts, then you can use the Eco layers for this purpose.
About your original problem you might want to take a look at this old topic:
I put all my routing on one layer and it goes to the manufacturer as project-EdgeCuts.gml.
I have no problems with visualisation in kicad however it is important to make sure line segments meet precisely particularly if you are using the 3D viewer. If just one pair of segments is not precise the 3D view will not render correctly.
It is one tool that would be great to have in kicad, if you could select 2 line segments and press a key to have them automatically trim to precise connection (just like autocad) or a snap to end function when drawing.
