Free software for programming

For basic task like merging BOM with centroid file I use SMT-Maestro or my own tool that does the same thing. As with RobD above this gets your data into a fairly standard consistent format from where I would hope your Juki tools can take over. To create a centroid file from gerber I used Fab3000, its not free but gerbgrab is if free is more important that being nice to use/stable. I'm not a huge fan of visual place because the author seems to have invented a format that is supposedly output by various CAD (e.g protel) programs and it isn't so you have to edit the files you start with to have a very specific header names and other details. It's not bad once thats done however I guess and can even do the gerber to centroid file trick these days I believe although it was a little slow when I tried it last.

For programming machines themselves rather than just prepping or cleaning up data, PCBSynergy is the only free solution I am aware of. Its focus is single machines, but presumably your line computer handles the job splitting. I have no idea how much Juki charges for the official offline programming tool but I would think it was worth finding out.

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