Re: gEDA-user: latest PCB w/gsch2pcb deletes parts?

[sdb@xxxxxxxxxx (Stuart Brorson)]

> > I recently upgraded to the latest PCB CVS.  Now when I run gsch2pcb on
> > an already existing pcb file many of my components get deleted.  Also
> > new 0603 caps no longer have silkscreen around them.  Is it possible
> > that changes to PCB caused this?  I didn't change gsch2pcb.
> 
> Yes, latest pcb from cvs does not have silk around the 0603 footprint. 
> IPC-7351 seems to indicate no room for silk on 0603.  The newer 0603 (or 
> preferably the IPC-7351 compliant names for 0603 -- CAPC1608N for 
> example) in the ~geda  library should be much better from a soldering 
> point of view too.  The previous one was no good.

A tangential point to this:  If you use newlib footprints, John
Luciani's caps have partial silk at the ends of the parts which help
determine the component body size during placement.  And (shameless
plug) some time ago I wrote a perl utility called smtgen which
generates footprints for two terminal passives if you give it the
physical parameters like length, width, pad dimensions, etc.  You give
it all parameters on the command line, and it writes footprint to
STDOUT.  It draws a full rectangle around the part on the silkscreen
layer.  I put it on my website for interested parties to use: 

http://www.brorson.com/gEDA/

The resulting footprints may or may not be IPC standard (I haven't
paid attention to recommendations for dealing with the silkscreen),
but I have used them and they work. 

Have fun,

Stuart