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

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

> > What is the correct thing to look for, then?  The mask layers I got
> > have, in gerbv, grey where there should be soldermask and black where
> > there should be no soldermask.
>
> I'm guessing pcbexpress wants black where mask and grey where exposed.

This is probably the case.  I was able to get a set of gerber files
from my friend who'd recommended pcbexpress, and I looked at them with
gerbv, and every single layer felt like it had a background of black.
(I didn't actually have labels of which layer was which, but it did
seem like protel was probably using the opposite polarity, in terms of
what the layers look like in gerbv, vs what the old pcb was using.)

Upgrading to the 20050315 gives me the same polarity as what my
friend's files seem to have, so I've submitted the output of the
20050315 snapshot of pcb (installed using pcb-current in netbsd
pkgsrc) to pcbexpress; I'll let the list know how it goes.

> > I'm not sure if that would get me the optimal pad size, though.  Also,
> > doing that manually for 9 connectors times three holes per connector
> > would leave me feeling like I'd like better automation.
>
> The .pcb file is a text file; you can use a perl/sed/awk/edit script
> to bulk change them.

yeah, yeah, yeah.  and actually, using search and replace in emacs was
straightforward once I thought about it a bit.