I personally don't know what will happen if you submit the merged file though. Probably better you have two separate files as then the manufacturer can make the decision themselves, whereelse it maybe harder to un-merge the two files.
I did mention this as a comment about half a year ago, but never made a whole thread about it, so here goes:
If you sign up for twitter notifications, and put your email address in the 'twitter username' field, the twitter-bot will automatically tweet your email publicly.
I haven't been affected by this myself, but looking at the twitter bot, quite a few emails are being exposed every week: https://twitter.com/DirtyBoardsPCBs
I guess the solution would be to truncate everything before the first @ symbol, or just not allow having stuff before the @ symbol, but I'm not a web developer.
So yea just bringing this to your attention. I mean, I know you could say "it's the user's fault", but for the effort to fix it I think it would be worth it.
What program are you using to make the PCB? Maybe you can change it in the export options/someone else who uses the program can tell you how to fix it?
There are plenty of online viewers which should be able to show the drills. Here's one (not saying it's the best, but I've used it before): http://gerblook.org/
You can also try uploading it to the OSHPark site without ordering the PCB, they have a nice built in viewer (but I think you need to make an account).
In Kicad, I only get one drill file which is labeld ".drl". I then use a python script to rename the ".drl" to ".txt" so it's recognized by most of the online PCB services. I'm not quite sure why you have two drill files (you have both a ".drl" and a ".txt")? Maybe it's used for some advanced thing I don't know about (like separate mounting hole/plated hole files)...
> people put things other than twitter handles into the form
Probably would be a good idea to validate that field, looks like many people have inadvertently leaked their email to Twitter = lots of spam if it gets picked up by a bot. I guess you guys have bigger problems at the moment, but it's one to put on the back burner.
I haven't gotten any email or twitter updates with the new site, but the "order history" on the website says "in production" (if helps you diagnose it, the order number is 201076). I know the emails didn't go to spam, because I got the emails from the old website, and checked my spam folder as well. EDIT: raised a support ticket, got emails from that. Also got my pcbs today.
I'm 90% sure the kicad via size is the pad size, and the kicad via drill is the size of the drill to drill the hole. Solder mask is set by the 'solder mask expansion' option, although by default kicad exports all vias as tented (change in gerber output options!). This option will make ALL your vias exposed however.
So according to what eauth said, if you want a endsize of 12mil, then you need a drill size of 16 mil, and you can set your pad size bigger than that. Why do you need your pad size equal to/less than your drill size? I think eauth just meant that the size of a plated hole will be 4mil smaller than the drill used to drill it due to plating.
I just feel it would be nicer to say "you can try, but there's a chance it will be rejected" rather than "we don't do it", as newcomers to your site (like me) will assume that you really won't do it, and go to some other manufacturer if we need v-grooves. Other specs, besides the v-grooves, seem to be described this way which is great.
I guess you'll probably change the description anyway to match the v-groove option in the new submission form (if that's what you meant by the descriptions being a placeholder).
eg Shape Almost anything! We'll send it and see if they accept it! Test specs Just don't make it too crazy (4/4 spacing, etc). We'll tell you if the factory has problems.
The PCBs must be connected by mouse bites, slots, vgroove, etc.
On your "about page" it says:
Quote
V-groove/V-cut/V-score
Nope. We don't do it. Why not? The board house said fine, free, no problem - then never did it. Eventually they told us it was an extra fee. Sorry, no more v-groove.
Reading the forum now, I guess this applies only to 4 layer boards, but I used to think it applied to 2 layer boards as well before the forum popped up :S
Also, is there any preferred method? as in, which method have you had the most problems with?
