PowerPCB 3 PCB:s into 1

[BEA]

Hi,

I have made 3 PCB:s with PowerPCB and going to make prototypes. Is there a easy way to make one PCB of them to save manufacturing cost?

 

[philba]

not all manufacturers allow this but some do.

there may be a way to do it with powerPCB but the stanrdard way is to make gerbers and then merge them together. I use gerbmerge, it's free. It works quite well though the set up is a bit complex. It requires python to be installed and you run it in dosbox.
**broken link removed**

You will also want to get something like viewmate to check your gerbers. also free.
http://www.pentalogix.com/

 

[cyberrat]

If powerpcb will not allow you to import them into 1, perhaps put them all next to eachother in a Gerber editor.

Or you could always just send them all to the pcb manufacturer at the same time & do a deal to getthem cheaper if you buy them all at the same time.

Either way, they still have to route/score them to make individuals.
AFAIK the only thing you will save is 2 lots of tooling charges if they are done together.

 

[BEA]

I have Gerbtool to make panels. But I do not have time to learn howto make a panel of the three PCB:s this time.

When trying in importing a asc into another powerpcb file it complains about that things already is present.

 

[philba]

use gerb tool. take the time to learn it. The amount of time you spend fussing with merging 3 boards in powerpcb will be more than the time you take to learngerb tool. Also, if you make changes to one board, re-merging the geerbers will be a lot easier than remerging the board designs.

 

[cyberrat]

Simply send them to eurocircuits.com and they will add them together for you and provide cheap prototypes.

 

[PCBL]

All you need to do is make sure all the netnames and ref des. are different.
Export 2 of the boards to ascii making sure the origins are in the location you want the board to come in.
then import each into the main file

 

[taring77]

i did before a copy and paste maethod. Provided ur confident enuff & none of ur PCB need anymore checking. but just a reminder the file size is large.
As most recommended do use a gerber tool software e.g CAM350 and merge the gerber tgr.