Re: gEDA-user: pcbexpress.com and ``pcb'' ``negative'' solder mask layers

["Joel N. Weber II" <jwgeda@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> I have done three two layer boards with PCB and PCBExpress and have not had 
> any problems with Gerbers (no soldermask or silkscreen). Did your
> files look OK when you  viewed them with gerbv? I have also done a
> four layer board with PCBExpress using Eagle without any issues (no
> soldermask or silkscreen).

The files mostly looked fine in gerbv.  One of the two solder mask
layers got me complaints about a missing aperture, and there was one
line that was obviously different that seemed to omit the aperture (I
think this was the first aperture in the file), so I cloned the one
that didn't have those errors to the other one, and fixed the
descriptive comments at the top so that they stayed different.  (This
is a thru hole only board, no surface mount parts, which seems to
imply that the mask layers ought to be identical to each other.)

I'm running pcb-1.99j out of debian unstable, compiled on netbsd,
which might not be the optimal choice; there was a bug in the
sourceforge bug tracking system which seemed like it could have been
the bug I saw.

> With PCBExpress I use a script that merges the two drill files.

I ended up merging the two files by hand.  Given that pcbexpress
claims to not guarentee that copper will stay out of any holes anyway,
I probably could have just made pads of the approprite size where I
just needed mounting holes for the Kycon ST-3100-3C.  But I only
noticed this after I'd placed all of the components, and changing it
would be kind of tedious.