How to fill small gaps in gerber or create custom fill in Eagle

[Jelbert]

Hi,

In Eagle I create pcb's out of calculated geometrical shapes. These shapes sometimes do not lignup and create small isolated spots (<3mill). This makes the pcb unable to be produced by the pcb manufacturer.

The solution would be to write an ULP program in Eagle to fill these small spots. Is there a way to do this?
If it is possible to access the layout as a grid, set to 3 mil, and detect copper. Then it would be possible to fill the small area's without copper.
However I have no idea how to do that.

An other way would be to do it as a post process on the gerber. Is there any software that can do this out there? Or is there Gerber editing software that allows for macro programming?

 

[Mattylad]

The manufacturer will have the ability to do this using their front end software, it's an easy fix for them.

If they cannot then this would suggest your using an extremely low cost supplier who has not got the right tools.

CAM350 can do it but it's going to cost more than you doing it in the design.

 

[Jelbert]

The manufacturer will have the ability to do this using their front end software, it's an easy fix for them.

If they cannot then this would suggest your using an extremely low cost supplier who has not got the right tools.

CAM350 can do it but it's going to cost more than you doing it in the design.

Thank you for the reply. Yes it is a starting company who do their production in China. Their prices and possibilities are good.
CAM350 looks expensive and no online pricing, hmmm.
Ok the quick solution would be to go for this design to a more expensive manufacturer. And on the long run solve it in my software. I will keep looking for a solution on that end.

 

[Mattylad]

Why can you not either change your shapes or add copper shapes in Eagle yourself?
That way you are in control of it all and can then send your Gerbers to any manufacturer without this issue.

That's what I would do - when I present me data for manufacture I try to do it so that as far as I know there is very little corrective wok that they need to do.

 

[Jelbert]

The pcb is very atypical. The best way to describe it would be a wave guide that is made parametric. I enter the wavelength and other parameters and the ULP makes the complete pcb for me. It does not use the normal way of first make a schematic to netlist to pcb. It just makes the complete pcb. In the past I have used this method and program with succes. But for this project the board gets very complex.
Due to the way the calculations are made some small gaps arise between traces.
Now when I look at the format of how a board is defined within Eagle, a wire has a starting point and an end point. But it is very hard to see if this wire intersects with an other wire or comes within 3mil of an other wire.
I did hope to find a way to acces the layout in a grid. If I could access it like a (x,y) coordinate and see if that position has coper, it would be easy to see if there are any gaps.
Maybe I want the impossible or I look at the problem from the wrong direction.