Yes, I know that 90% of the time the JLCPCB gerber viewer accepts and displays the file just fine. But when it does not, there is a high percentage chance that the boards will show up with unexpected changes.
Last week another batch of simple 2-layer boards showed up from JLCPCB with manufacturing mistakes that would have been caught if their gerber viewer worked. This is not a problem with the files since I uploaded, viewed, and priced out the board with PCBWAY and OSHPark (as well as viewing in KiCAD itself) and they all confirmed the board was as expected. Even though JLCPCB viewer choked on the files I added the board to my cart since it was just a portion of a larger order. I also paid the additional $4 ‘engineering fee’ which is imposed anytime their gerber viewer fails.
Long story short, the boards showed up with two mistakes (the obround pads were round and a layer of silkscreen missing).
I have tried many things to try and figure out what is causing the JLCPCB viewer to fail but nothing is consistent. Deleting a ground plane or not including a drill file or some other obscure change will sometimes get the viewer to show the board. of course these are all things the board needs. The odd thing is that it does not seem that their viewer failure is caused by any single particular item.
How is it that JLCPCB still has such a crappy viewer and has anyone found the secret to getting 100% successful views? I have been changing my orders to other houses just to avoid the JLCPCB viewer.
Each time their viewer fails, send them a mail and tell them you went to another manufacturer for a batch of PCB’s because their Gerber viewer is no good.
If other people also do this, and they start getting 10 or so of these mails daily, they probably wake up after some time…
I’ve made several dozen kicad designs with JLC over the past year, with zero problems. Can you share some of the problematic files?
here is a very simple one. 100mm x 100mm 2-layer.
renders fine on pcbway or OSHPark but cannot render in JLCPCB gerber viewer
http://sbc-85.com/index.php/download/protoboard-v1-0-gerber-files/
Yes and also send them an example file, so they can see what needs fixing.
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