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Topic: How do I panelize my PCBs? What kind of panelizing is ok? (Read 9948 times) previous topic - next topic

How do I panelize my PCBs? What kind of panelizing is ok?

Only the two layer board house allows panelizing. The PCBs must be connected by mouse bites, slots, vgroove, etc.

You cannot put multiple designs in one protopack that are not connected in some way.

Do not count on getting the exact panel frame you specify on really bizarre and complex designs. Once someone put through a design for "tear off" PCB tags with a very fine 1mm panel around it. Obviously the milling and drilling machines are going to tear that to shreds. The board house increased the panel frame a few MM so they could actually manufacture it, and the customer was really disappointed. These are cheap pcbs, don't push it.
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Re: How do I panelize my PCBs? What kind of panelizing is ok

Reply #1 –
Quote
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?

Re: How do I panelize my PCBs? What kind of panelizing is ok

Reply #2 –
Working on bigger info here, these are just placeholders. On the DEV site you can choose vgroove.for a fee. Plus its an open secret that if you put vgroove through dirtyPCBs normally it will be done. Normally. Not that we guarantee or promote it.

Main thing about these services is you can take your chances with the cheap fab just like we do here in South Park.
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Re: How do I panelize my PCBs? What kind of panelizing is ok

Reply #3 –
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.

Re: How do I panelize my PCBs? What kind of panelizing is ok

Reply #4 –
Quote
You cannot put multiple designs in one protopack that are not connected in some way.

Okay ... but that worked for me at least once.

I put multiple unconnected Boards (as in with unconnected outlines) into one Gerber file like this:
http://dirtypcbs.com/view.php?share=783 ... 576b6f7420
Without any mousebites or grooves between them.

As I result I got this:


Was that just dump luck and the factory tried to fix my broken file for me, or is it something I can do on a regular basis ?

The reason for asking is that I'd like to set up monthly PCB group orders at my local hacker space.
And since everyone uses his/her layout tool of choice, we can not panellizes the layouts in the cad software.
Instead we scripted gerbv to merge the gerbers, which resulted in the above panel.
DIY-electronics ... eating all my money and free time since 1998

Re: How do I panelize my PCBs? What kind of panelizing is ok

Reply #5 –
I'll add a shout-out here to STIJN KUIPERS Geber Panelizer Tool.  I have used it myself and it works pretty well in my opinion.  It's in "closed beta", just ask Stijn for the password to download it.

Since I'm here I'll include a couple of notes I sent Stijn about my experience using his tool which might be helpful for others...

Quote
(...) DipTrace users should export the following layers with the following names (they can set these as defaults in the gerber export for simplicity)...

Layer   Filename
Top Silk   <layer>.gto
Top Mask   <layer>.gts
Top   <layer>.gtl
Bottom   <layer>.gbl
Bottom Mask   <layer>.gbs
Bottom Silk   <layer>.gbo
Board Outline   <layer>.gko

Important to note that they should not create a "gml" file as specified in your help, this is mainly what got me confused, just the gko is sufficient.

I did not have good results when using Metric units in the Gerber (well, my gerber viewer got screwy)

They will also of course need to export the N/C Drill, which can be named Through.txt

[hr:][/hr:]

I usually use gerbv to check my gerbers[s:], for some reason gerbv segfaults when reading the copper and mask layers of your tool's combined output (it reads the outline and silk layers fine)[/s:] (see update below)

gerbview (part of kiCad) seems to work ok

mayhewlabs in-browser 3d viewer sort of works, but gets messed up on some of the copper and the internal cut-outs of the outline (maybe it just can't render those at all though)

[hr:][/hr:]

Fixing gerbv to work with Stijn's tool's merged gerbers

Short version, gerbv has a miniscule bug which messes things up trying to display the merged result.

I created a fork here to fix it, in so much as a one-line-change can be a fork:

  https://github.com/sleemanj/gerbv/blob/master/README.md

PS: Ian, it would be good for you to update the gerbv you use on dev.dang.... to be my "fork" above, that should fix the no-image-gets-generated problem on some of the boards, it's to do with polygons in gerbers that have more points than the gerbv developers thought one should need (a very low number).

[hr:][/hr:]

I think tabs "3 holes" across would have been sufficient (...) I need to use pliers to break the wider ones apart





Re: How do I panelize my PCBs? What kind of panelizing is ok

Reply #6 –
Stijn has hung out here :) I like Stijn. He makes the coolest damn PCBs. He makes lots of them :)

You got some mercy from an engineer who would rather push another one through than deal with writing us and waiting for a reply from our overseas customer :) Don't chance it.

I would LOVE to have an auto panel service for you. Give your hacker space a page where you can dump your boards and fill a panel. Please convince Stijn to share his source :)
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Re: How do I panelize my PCBs? What kind of panelizing is ok

Reply #7 –
Quote
PS: Ian, it would be good for you to update the gerbv you use on dev.dang.... to be my "fork" above, that should fix the no-image-gets-generated problem on some of the boards, it's to do with polygons in gerbers that have more points than the gerbv developers thought one should need (a very low number).

Great, thank you. I am working on the back end rendering cluster this weekend. I am not an adept desktop developer or sys admin, I likely won't be able to compile gerv myself though.
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Re: How do I panelize my PCBs? What kind of panelizing is ok

Reply #8 –
FWIW I've done a few mixed panels now, designed with Design Spark from RS and they have all been produced without problem - as far as I'm aware!

The only issue I get is that DS produces two drill files, one for plated and one for unplated so you have to merge the two manually - as others have commented, it would be nice if DirtyPCB could do both types of drilling but I know that adds an extra process so probably not too keen...

Anyway, I create an outline on one of the documentation layers to show the maximum panel size then arrange my boards (copy and paste) within this outline, leaving a 75 thou gap between them. I'm not sure what milling cutters the board house uses but this seems to work well - and also leaves a large enough gap to easily de-panel the boards.

It's worth commenting at this point that it is easier to copy and paste just the board outline at first until you get the arrangement as you want, then copy and paste the whole board.

You need to use a bit of sense in arranging to make sure you can create enough nibs to link the boards together with a decent amount of structural strength. Unlike others I use nibs rather than mouse-bites as they are less work for the board house and no great hassle to remove with a decent pair of cutters.

When I have time I'll try and write a tutorial but basically, I create another layer called 'Outline' on which I create a series of 1 thou thick closed shapes with which I trace the outline of the panel then create inner cutouts to separate the boards. To create the nibs I have the edges of two of these shapes 0.2" apart then convert the ends in to 180 degree arcs.

I then output this as gerbers, merge the drill files manually and check with Gerbv to make sure it all look sensible.

The two attached pictures give an overview, the first is the general panel arrangement, the second the outline detail. Note I've also got two slots in one board for mounting a display. The board house seems to have no issues with this - I've done very thin slots (25 thou) before to add clearance between pads on a TO220 and they came back as expected.

To de-panel I just cut the nibs then trim with a set of Xuron cutters. Cheaper ones work but the blades tend to shatter after a few hundred nibs on 1.6mm PCB. Thinner stuff is no problem at all.

For anyone in the UK I can also recommend smtstencil.co.uk for stencils - £15 for an A4 sheet and you can similarly merge designs on a single sheet if you need more than one.
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Re: How do I panelize my PCBs? What kind of panelizing is ok

Reply #9 –
[quote author="ian"]
You got some mercy from an engineer who would rather push another one through than deal with writing us and waiting for a reply from our overseas customer :) Don't chance it.

I would LOVE to have an auto panel service for you. Give your hacker space a page where you can dump your boards and fill a panel. Please convince Stijn to share his source :)
[/quote]

Then I guess it was really just a merciful engineer who made it work.

For future panels I'm currently considering to build something, which is not really as polished and automated as you suggest.
Last year around this time I've been messing with a solution using github, aperature scripting and some kind of continuous integration tool.
The idea was that each order is a branch in the repo.
People can fork the repo, add their gerber file and modify the lua script to include it in the panel.
Then they have post a pull request for the main repo, which will trigger the CI tool.
The CI tool will fetch the pull request, build the panel, check that everything work and merge the pull request.
It should also add some pictures to the pull request in case something goes and it has to reject the request.
The idea behind the CI tool doing all the work was that not everyone wants to invest the time to setup all the lua
libraries needed. (Also I didn't want to play tech support for 15 peoples lua setups.)
The remains of me playing around with that are still on github: https://github.com/LongHairedHacker/PCBGroupOrder
I ran into some bug/missing features in aparature scripting (,which should be all fixed by now) and had to put the project aside.

Using Stijns tool could simplify that process a lot.
Since then we could reduce it to: Add your boards gerbers to the git, use the tool to build a panel with all the gerbers, send a pull request.
I hoped that it would be freely available by now.

Anyway I'm going to write Stijn an email and see what happens next.
DIY-electronics ... eating all my money and free time since 1998

Re: How do I panelize my PCBs? What kind of panelizing is ok

Reply #10 –
Heya! Sent you a reply :-)

Just posting something here as well to stay in the loop!

I'd love to help this online panelizer come to fruition -> the server can do the heavy lifting and actual merging after extracting the outline data

I can set up a commandline version that takes the list of tabs + boards which will spit out some merged gerbers on the serverside, and a webgl type thing to drag the boards around + maybe adding DangerousPrototypes PCB keychains in all the empty areas ;-)

Another nice thing to add is the procedural tool to fill up any large leftover areas with custom prototyping-area/perfboard pcbs etc - been adding these to my panels for a while every time I have some cm2 left over.

I am officially back on "fun projects" starting mid-march - if you can give me some pointers/specs on how to best integrate this with the existing backend I think this thing shall just have to built :-)

Some pics of our current panelized experiments: http://http://rpc.gehennom.org/stuff/modules1/

Re: How do I panelize my PCBs? What kind of panelizing is ok

Reply #11 –
Wow you did some nice PCB art on your project(s). Nice work!

Re: How do I panelize my PCBs? What kind of panelizing is ok

Reply #12 –
Also see viewtopic.php?f=70&t=7777

Re: How do I panelize my PCBs? What kind of panelizing is ok

Reply #13 –
Thanks Stijn - really anything is fine for me to integrate. I guess I didn't realize it was a manual process, I thought it was an automated dump and panelize script. WebGL sounds extreme :) Someone slipped me the password for your script, I'll grab it and get a bit more familiar so I have informed feedback.
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Re: How do I panelize my PCBs? What kind of panelizing is ok

Reply #14 –
Whats the latest on this? I'm new to the PCB making scene and learning with kicad and i want to maximize the 5cmX5cm granted to me by combining as much of my practice boards onto the the 5cmx5cm board and connecting them with breakable tabs.