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Subtract Excellon to Gerber?

mfla
Thu, 25 Apr 2019 13:33:52 GMT

Hello, I'm currently using FlatCAM to make PCBs via the permanent marker method - a marker on a floating Z attachment for my 3d printer. While this works perfectly, I'd like to know if there is any way to subtract the holes directly to the copper traces, since drilling the holeless pads is much slower and harder to achieve decently. I've seen a post from years ago (https://muut.com/i/flatcam/developers:flatcam-as-a-regular-plot) but can't even do it the manual way (i have no idea how to make a cutout, honestly) and this seems something rather simple. Otherwise I think Eagle exports with the holes made on the copepr traces, right? I might have to learn Eagle I guess Also, a question: what's the feedrate unit? I have to set it to less than 0.001 to successfully plot on my printer running Marlin

Marius Stanciu
Thu, 25 Apr 2019 16:21:56 GMT

Hi, What version of FlatCAM are you using?

mfla
Thu, 25 Apr 2019 16:28:37 GMT

8.5, since the newer version did some funky things when I attempted to use negative tool size (can't recall what it was, but I think it simply hung altogether)

Marius Stanciu
Thu, 25 Apr 2019 18:07:22 GMT

You could have reported if there was an issue. It would have helped... But right now negative tool dias work ok. I've made a GIF and posted it in a topic bellow, named: "flatCAM and opensuse Tumbleweed". Regarding FlatCAM 8.5 I'm sorry but I can't help. I'm immersed in the features of beta and I find it harder and harder to remember what was in 8.5, what was in development 8.5, what actually I've tried to add (pull requests) to dev version of 8.5. Also before beta (which started to happen at the start of this year) I already worked for a long time on the so called FlatCAM Nightly's ... just to add to the confusion of what is and what is not. :)

Marius Stanciu
Tue, 30 Apr 2019 17:04:26 GMT

In any case, due of some other reason (removal of silkscreen that is overlapped over soldermask) I've just added this feature to the FlatCAM beta. It will be available as Substract Tool in the future release of FlatCAM beta 8.915. Substract Tool will work on Gerber objects but also in Geometry objects. Even more, the multigeo Geometry objects( geometries resulted from Paint or NCC Tools) can be used as targets, too.

Marius Stanciu
Tue, 30 Apr 2019 17:10:14 GMT

Something like this: https://gifyu.com/image/93Xz