Production Issue from Seeed Studio

Manufacturing
1

Hello,

I’ve recently tried to manufacture an order using Seeed Studio. My order has now been rejected twice for having incorrect file formatting.

The first time I submitted, I followed the instructions on: http://support.seeedstudio.com/knowledgebase/articles/613173-how-to-generate-gerber-from-kicad
The second time, I followed:
http://www.sl-alex.com.ua/en/page/kicad-preparing-pcb-for-seeedstudio

Both times they got rejected with the message:
"Since your PCB file did NOT meet our requirements, your order has been holding up for now.

The comments for your PCB file are:
Please generate the PCB files in Gerber RS274X format. Drilling layer in excellon format.
Please check the PCB file and upload it again via the link below."

I have shipped boards using KiCad 3 and Altium, and have had no problems with SeeedStudio before.

Are there additional steps required in Kicad 4 to generate the correct fabrication outputs (that are not present in the tutorials above)?

2

Can you share your gerbers that got rejected?
Otherwise it will be a bit of guesswork from our side. Or at least make a screenshot of the gerber export tool dialog to show us your setup.

3

Here is a link to the zipped gerber submission that got rejected the 2nd time around:

4

Those zip files are invalid, maybe that is the problem?

5

I get the same invalid error message on the .zip files.

7

Not many “ordinary” fabs can yet. Always ask first if you want to use X2.

8

Logically, we can conclude that: the OP generated the zip on the Mac, there is a problem reading the zip on Windows, and Seedstudio do not use Macs.

Resolution : generate the zip in a format that can be read on Windows.

— ETA
After some digging, I found that the dropbox “zip” files are actually tar.gz, so Seedstudio might have had trouble with that.

Additionally, @Andy_P is right, your Gerbers appear to use extended attributes. For cheap fabs like Seedstudio you must not use the extended attributes. This is shown in the guide you followed, but is a bit subtle and one could easily overlook it.

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2 Likes
9

Hi everyone,

I zipped the file on Linux using tar, and that seems to be the problem. That would explain why the mac user above was able to unzip it, but some of you weren’t.

Seeed Studio emailed me back today and mentioned that the issue was with the zip file and not the gerber files (that warning message they gave me was misleading). I will try zipping on windows and re-submitting, and see how that goes.

Thanks for the help.

1 Like
10

You can zip on linux aswell. (normally if you leftclick and select compress you get a dialog where you can choose what format you want.)
(The screenshot is made in fedora 23 under cinnamon within nemo as filebrowser. If you have a different setup the dialog might look different. But i’m sure there is some way to select what archive type you want.)
You might need to install the tool responsible for creating zip archives. In fedora it is simply called “zip”. just search with the package manager of your choise for “zip” or if this does not work use “*zip*”.

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If you want to use the command line: (or if your setup does not provide a gui where you can select the archive type.)

1 Like