Ok. That’s good.
Must be my install. I’ll reinstall and see if that fixes it.
Thanks!
But your board house should not have had any issues with these files either - weren’t they the ones complaining? Also, your Cuprum should be able to read these just fine. I.e., I am not so sure reinstalling will do anything for ya.
Correct. But at this point I don’t know what else to do.
I tried these files on the Reference Gerber Viewer, because it has half-decent error messages. (Many others are very poor in this respect.
It does not accept the Silk as a Gerber file. It a way this is correct, the file is empty and a Gerber file must end in a M02*. (The extension .gbr make it clear that it is intended as a Gerber file, a message ‘Missing M02*’ would have been better, but hey, it is what it is.)
It has no problems with the other files. They seem to render as intended, AFIK. I had a cursory look at the files - I am quite familiar with the Gerber syntax - and these files seem impeccable. But then the KiCad Gerber files are excellent, in contrast to high-end systems such as Mentor, whose Gerber files are often crap.
There is an outside chance that the manufacturers, or KiCad, are confused by an empty file with a .gbr extension. You could test this by trying just the three valid files.
The problem may be in files you did not submit. You might try them on the Reference Gerber Viewer and see if it moans about something.
(Another matter altogether. Your edge cuts is not the profile of the board, but some kind of drawing. The syntax of the file is correct, but the semantics not. A profile must be a true profile, not a drawing from which the profile may be created.)
1 Like
On my Mac (OSX 10.12.6 High Sierra)
All files opened in:
• Cuprum
• Gerbview - standalone
• Gerbview - kicad’s main panel
• CopperCam (for CNC machining)
• Also shows correctly in Finder’s preview - (FYI- somehow/magically, Cuprum tags the file types to Cuprum so, they appear. Did not appear prior to using Cupum - it’s been on my machine 5 years and previews all gerbers in the Finder without opening the program - Screenshots)
About all I noticed is that for some, I needed to change the background Color (hard to see Black items on Black/Dark background).
Cuprum will not allow me to even select the files (all greyed out)) and Kicad still loads them, but there is no image.
This makes zero sense.
There is an online Gerber app that does display the board (and the layers) just fine.
What is going on? This is killing me.
So the edge cut being a shape is interesting. Not sure why that’s happening either…
Wouldn’t this have easier if you would have attached the whole KiCad project in the first place? At least it would be easier to tell why they have been generated that way…
This may be the ‘Clue’…
It lists your file types as “gerbview document”
On my machine, they’re listed as “Gerber image” screenshot
Try changing the file type (select the file, Get Info …) Mine shows gerbers as ‘Cuprum’ for past 5 years. But, see screenshot of Info panel where you can change the type - gerbview show up there so, try changing to Cuprum
How do I change the file type? I select the file, right click on Get Info, but I don’t see any file type to modify.
Also, good catch!!
I’m a noob. Wasn’t sure how to deal with this problem.
Where it says “Open With” it’s a drop down…
Yeah, I found that. Its default is Gerbview.app. That’s correct already.
No, change it to Cuprum. Report back…
FYI - tested this: I changed a single gerber file to open with gerbview and Bingo! Didn’t open in other programs that normally open gerbers (for doing real work, not for viewing)
I do not agree with this:
So I created an empty project in KiCad-nightly V5.99, created gerbers and loaded an “empty” gerber layer in a text editor.
The files of the empty layers are between 522 and 527 bytes in size:
paul@medion:~/projects/kicad/LED_PT4115_599/empty/gerber$ ls -hl
total 48K
-rw-rw-r-- 1 paul paul 526 Dec 1 21:56 empty-B_Cu.gbr
-rw-rw-r-- 1 paul paul 527 Dec 1 21:56 empty-B_Mask.gbr
-rw-rw-r-- 1 paul paul 522 Dec 1 21:56 empty-B_Paste.gbr
-rw-rw-r-- 1 paul paul 523 Dec 1 21:56 empty-B_Silkscreen.gbr
-rw-rw-r-- 1 paul paul 752 Dec 1 21:56 empty-Edge_Cuts.gbr
-rw-rw-r-- 1 paul paul 526 Dec 1 21:56 empty-F_Cu.gbr
-rw-rw-r-- 1 paul paul 527 Dec 1 21:56 empty-F_Mask.gbr
-rw-rw-r-- 1 paul paul 522 Dec 1 21:56 empty-F_Paste.gbr
-rw-rw-r-- 1 paul paul 523 Dec 1 21:56 empty-F_Silkscreen.gbr
-rw-rw-r-- 1 paul paul 2,5K Dec 1 21:56 empty-job.gbrjob
And when opening such a file it does end with a "M02* line:
%TF.GenerationSoftware,KiCad,Pcbnew,5.99.0-unknown-a3e8e0184~106~ubuntu20.04.1*%
%TF.CreationDate,2020-12-01T21:56:27+01:00*%
%TF.ProjectId,empty,656d7074-792e-46b6-9963-61645f706362,rev?*%
%TF.SameCoordinates,Original*%
%TF.FileFunction,Legend,Top*%
%TF.FilePolarity,Positive*%
%FSLAX46Y46*%
G04 Gerber Fmt 4.6, Leading zero omitted, Abs format (unit mm)*
G04 Created by KiCad (PCBNEW 5.99.0-unknown-a3e8e0184~106~ubuntu20.04.1) date 2020-12-01 21:56:27*
%MOMM*%
%LPD*%
G01*
G04 APERTURE LIST*
G04 APERTURE END LIST*
M02*
Which means my detailism is satisfied and I see no need to make an issue out of it on gitlab.
[ Edit: ]
@Frederik: Why do you think “Silk” is empty?
The file Peetem uploaded in #23 is 120kB and looks like a normal silk screen layer.
https://forum.kicad.info/uploads/short-url/oKda0ABZWVi39Dynn8UYi1EMktP.gbr
(I think I’m spending too much time on too small details here. Noting important seems to be going on.)
You are quite right, I re-downloaded the Silk and it is not empty. When I downloaded it the first time, the result was empty. Why that is I don’t know, I can only speculate.
Both the Silk I have now and the empty silk you created look perfect, as usual with KiCad Gerbers.
So I still have a weird set of problems, but was able to plot the gerber files that were accepted by two PCB manufacturers.
I can view the files using Cuprum but not Gerbview.
Still not sure what to do, but at least I can get some boards made.
Thanks for everyone’s help!
I just noticed you are using OSX? Have you upgraded? I don’t see that information here. It seems there have been several folks with problems lately.