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Drill Drawing is offset (Protel 98)

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colbtech

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Hi folks,

I am using Protel 98 (yes i know it's old) and have revised a schematic I drew a couple of years ago. Everything seems to be ok until I generate my gerbers.

All layers, silk screen, masks etc are in the right position the board is 6" x 4" and it looks fine............except the drill drawing is offset by about -5" in the X direction and -3" in the Y direction.

I have redrawn this board for the second time, used a new tempate and for the life of me cannot work out what has gone wrong!

Any ideas anyone? I willing to entertain solar flare radiation, alien intervention or even bloody gremlins!!!

Thanks

Colin
 

Re: Drill Drawing offset

Hi Collin,

If you are sending that board to board manufacturer, don't bother with the offset. Manufacturer will make it right during the drilling process.

P98 is the one that I used briefly, stopped at P99SE, so :sad:
 
Re: Drill Drawing offset

Hi Collin,

The brother above is correct, PCB manufacturer can help you output gerber file in protel, and we can change the format for drilling in CAM software such as CAM350 or Genesis2000.
We are glad to help you with this matter, if needed, please contact Jonny.hu@sunwaycircuit.com.

Regards
Jonny
 

Re: Drill Drawing offset

IS the bed size in the setup different between Gerber and NC drill? That would account for it.
 

Re: Drill Drawing offset

cyberrat said:
IS the bed size in the setup different between Gerber and NC drill? That would account for it.
Click to expand...

Hi Sorry it's taken me a while to post back.

I have deleted all pcb/gerber/text files and started with my basic schematic files. I have created a new netlist and board layout. Loaded the netlist, laid out the components, autorouted. All ok.

Check the gerbers with gc-prevue - all line up. But the drill drawing is still offset!!!!

I've checked for bed size and cannot find anything in the help size! Maybe it's called something else in Protel 98? What is "bed size"?

Colin
 

Re: Drill Drawing offset

The size of the plot area.

Or it could be how the plot is positioned within that area - are they setup differently.
 

Re: Drill Drawing offset

cyberrat said:
The size of the plot area.

Or it could be how the plot is positioned within that area - are they setup differently.
Click to expand...

Film Size is X20000mil, Y16000mil
Board Size is X6000mil, Y4500mil

Not sure what else I can do other than edit the drl file manually in excel? I think I'll send it to fabricator and ask them if they have any ideas. If I get a resolution (or figure it out) I'll post it here. Thanks

Colin
 

Re: Drill Drawing offset

It won't be easy to edit .drl file in Excel. Instead, you can edit .txt file, which is an ascii based excelon drill file.

BTW, is there any "center" option when you process gerbers?
 

Re: Drill Drawing offset

ZASto said:
It won't be easy to edit .drl file in Excel. Instead, you can edit .txt file, which is an ascii based excelon drill file.

BTW, is there any "center" option when you process gerbers?
Click to expand...

Thank you I meant to edit the txt file not the DRL, but think this might be too risky. I cannot find a centring option in Protel 98. What I do have is a trial version of altium designer. Will try this. Bit of work importing footprints etc
 

Re: Drill Drawing offset

The relative offset of the binary .DRL and Excellon ASCII .TXT drill files in Protel is correctly placed at the origin in the lower left hand corner. These drill files data are with respect to the actual PCB on the drill table. If you use a Gerber viewer like ViewMate for instance, one can use the following menu selection to automatically align the drill layer with other layers.

First import all Gerber layer files including the .DRL or TXT files. Then:

Menu -> Edit -> Move Layers XY Position -> Auto-Align Drill Layers
 

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