Problems with Gerber plot

Software
1

Hello I am running the latest stable variant of KiCad under windows 7 professional 64Bit.

Yesterday I bravely (carefully) copied my BZR 4022 made file to V4.0.5, and apart from some component updates in e schema it went quite well. Previous attempts have lead to disaster however this was OK at first.
I had lots of issues getting the library manager to accept .pretty version of my.mod but after much swearing and removing the fpt, re-building it and generally wasting much time, it was there - right in the library.

Maybe I am missing something but under windows at least it seems to be a very complicated and badly documented route. I cannot now remember which step worked I tried so many ways to force the library into place! There seems to be no logic about how to do this step which is quite important to me as I have 200+ components that are common to many of my PCBs.

Anyway, it was in the library, and I was able to edit and nudge the final design into place. I made a set of Gerber files
for PEC production, and all appeared to be fine until I edited the board after spotting a problem in Gerb_view. After re-plotting the Gerber files, the top silk layer Gerber was 0KB! I tried again and the bottom copper layer joined in at 0KB.

Panic was setting I now as I needed to get the files away today. The PCB file is on a network drive at something like m:\admin\company\saved\ad\project\NewPCB. All of the PCB files live there and the Gerbers were in their own sub directory - NewPCB\Gerber. By the third attempt I had 13 files 9 of which were sat a 0KB.

I made a new folder on the root drive of my PC C:\NewPCB_Gerber\ and tried again. All files were there and correct. I saved them, wiped the file and tried again. No problem all the files were present and correct again.

Finally I reset the output to the original location, and once more several files showed up as 0KB. Not sure if this is a speed related thing as the root drive files always are correct. The network drive ones are variable. Sometimes they are half present (things like some of the drill map missing, only outline in some layers, text missing). Very strange.

BZR 4022 never gave these sort of issues and I have made many Gerber files with that version on the local disc and network.

2

I can’t reproduce the errors you get, sorry.

Give a try to
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.cad.kicad.user/16146

I have made the conversion of 4022 files to version 4 several times. I have just made a conversion of a board to check whether the gerber files are generated alright, and they are.

The first thing I do is converting the footprints legacy library to the new .pretty style.

Good luck with the upgrading!

3

Question would be - does this incomplete gerber plotting also happen with native KiCAD 4.0.5 project files that are not based on a converted 4022 project?

Or am I missing the boat here?

4

When you plot the Gerber files, are there any unusual messages in the Messages window

5

Joan_Sparky.

I have not tried that as yet. Owing time pressures, this is the first “real” project I have imported to the latest version. I will set up a new less critical project in 4.0.5 from start to finish and try a native build all in 4.0.5.
The problem project has two copper layers, top & bottom mask, edge cuts, comments, top silk and drill maps so I will make a similar project to that.
Thanks for your input.

Davidsrsb:
Just the usual messages that the output files are being written.

Pedro:

I think that is what I eventually did. Pity I did not find the link earlier. Thanks