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Circuit cam and mydata

Circuit cam and mydata

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I am having trouble programming circuitcam for mydata (my9) ... - Mar 24, 2020 by Aaloktronix

What about designators? Using gerbers to program a pnp machi... - Mar 25, 2020 by Stephen

> What about designators? Using gerbers to program &l... - Mar 25, 2020 by Spoiltforchoice

As everyone else said, if you don't have CAD, it's a pain to... - Mar 26, 2020 by robgd3

Unisoft has been import gerber only for years to setup assem... - Mar 27, 2020 by Richard Larue

Convert CAD Data into a Placement Program Contract Manufactu... - Mar 30, 2020 by James Hayliie

Try PCBSynergy ... - Mar 31, 2020 by sarason

We use CircuitCam extensively, but not for MYDATA. What exa... - Apr 01, 2020 by ProcEng1

Unisoft for over 30 years imports gerber and BOM and program... - Apr 01, 2020 by Richard Larue

The problem is not with the software. The problem is with th... - Apr 02, 2020 by Stephen

Yes agreed you're 100% right on that. You always want to go ... - Apr 03, 2020 by Richard Larue

Can not speak for CircuitCam is made by Aegis Software I vel... - Apr 09, 2020 by josh

We unfortunately use GERBER data to digitize boards more tha... - Apr 10, 2020 by ProcEng1

&gt; We unfortunately use GERBER data to digitize &a... - Apr 10, 2020 by Spoiltforchoice

Yes process engineers that work for contract manufacturers t... - Apr 10, 2020 by Richard Larue

Certain customers do give us CAD. USUALLY ODB++ but I've al... - Apr 10, 2020 by ProcEng1

You can make SMT PnP data from just Gerber BUT need referenc... - Apr 10, 2020 by josh

The point here is if you can't get the full CAD files or the... - Apr 15, 2020 by Richard Larue

Circuit cam and mydata | 24 March, 2020

I am having trouble programming circuitcam for mydata (my9) pnp machine. My question is, when i digitalize the gerber file what should i take care to get required output for my9?

In my9 i cant see exact positions of all the components. I have assigned all the fiducials, packages, BOM properly but I dont know where I am doing wrong.

Can someone please help me to figure out this error in ciruitcam!!

I am comfortable doing videocal or screenshare if someone willing to do so.

Email:kghadiya@aaloktronix.com

Circuit cam and mydata | 25 March, 2020

What about designators? Using gerbers to program a pnp machine was always a last resort to be done only after much complaining and begging for proper CAD data. Back in the day I used UniCAM to program a mydata. After getting it figured out it was easy if I had proper CAD data. IIRC the only thing that hung me up at first was component classes.

Spoiltforchoice

Circuit cam and mydata | 25 March, 2020

> What about designators? Using gerbers to program
> a pnp machine was always a last resort to be done
> only after much complaining and begging for
> proper CAD data. Back in the day I used UniCAM to
> program a mydata. After getting it figured out it
> was easy if I had proper CAD data. IIRC the only
> thing that hung me up at first was component
> classes.

Ain't that the truth, I've had several pieces come my way recently where the XY data was not available.

There are several other options out there than can generate that data from Gerber (and from that point any machine SHOULD have decent import facilities)

Free: GerberGrab - seriously clunky but it does work, seems to be abandoned, if they were nice they'd release the source code.

Paid:

Graphicode - Seems to make a simple task ridiculously hard (at least to learn it)

Fab3000 - My Favorite, it has some minor rough edges but otherwise you can learn the task in hand in a short Youtube video

Unisoft - Quite heavily promoted/advertised in/on this forum (he'll be lurking in here somewhere). Also does the whole your data in to machine format out thing. On the occasions I have tried the demo I have found it quite fond of crashing and very reminiscent of 1995.

The risk with all these tools and manual teaching is you or the software will match the legend/assembly layer text with the wrong set of pads because it is often far from obvious. You'll also need to check orientations on everything polarised with some extra paranoia. There really is no replacement for getting the XY Data.

Circuit cam and mydata | 26 March, 2020

As everyone else said, if you don't have CAD, it's a pain to digitize the gerbers. So much so that we only did it once when I went to CircuitCam training.

After you digitize the gerbers, you have to merge the BOM with it. And you have to tell it package size (based on your package names in your library on the machine).

Honestly, in operation, if I didn't have CAD, I'd program it by hand on the machine. Unless you have an enormously populated board, you probably could have had that done by the time you digitized all the data, worked on assigning the p/n's and packages, transferred it to the machine, swore because it didn't work, posted the question on this forum, and received these answers. MyData makes on machine programming pretty easy, overall. No one's preferred method, as it takes you machine off-line, but, certainly effective.

Cheers, ..rob

Circuit cam and mydata | 27 March, 2020

Unisoft has been import gerber only for years to setup assembly, aoi machines, etc.

*** Help for Importing GERBER only files for used in programming Assembly, AOI, Test, Selective Soldering machines (X/Y Center, Rot, Part#). Also allows you to create assembly process sheets, kitting labels, do First Article Inspection, costing reports, aid assembly, rework, repair, troubleshooting, assembly/part cost reports, solder joint count (DPMO) report, etc. *** Full ProntoGERBER-CONNECTION Video http://www.youtube.com/v/Q0xMbGowdpY ProntoGERBER-CONNECTION webpage http://www.unisoft-cim.com/gerber_connection.htm ProntoGERBER-CONNECTION fully functional trial software and user manual http://www.unisoft-cim.com/gerber-connection_download.htm Netlists from only gerber data http://www.youtube.com/v/VrolYWHq9K8 rich larue 203-913-0782

Circuit cam and mydata | 30 March, 2020

Convert CAD Data into a Placement Program Contract Manufacturing Handle to have a fast and easy way to convert your CAD data into a placement program. Recently I purchased some PCBs from Greatpcb and Cplfpc for my college project.

Circuit cam and mydata | 31 March, 2020

Try PCBSynergy

http://members.iinet.net.au/~sarason/ If you really need to work from gerber files and not CAD data, use Visualplace

https://www.compuphase.com/visualplace/visualplace_en.htm

sarason

Circuit cam and mydata | 1 April, 2020

We use CircuitCam extensively, but not for MYDATA. What exactly is the issue you are seeing? Do you have the MYDATA Export module from Aegis?

Unisoft - www.unisoft-cim.com | 1 April, 2020

Unisoft for over 30 years imports gerber and BOM and programs Mydata, etc. quickly. https://www.unisoft-cim.com/gerber_connection.php

Also import virtually all CAD and XY Rotation formats .

Plus 100's of other features.

Rich Larue

Unisoft - www.unisoft-cim.com | 2 April, 2020

The problem is not with the software. The problem is with the data format. Gerber data is a photo plotting format. It essentially makes pictures. There is no way to make PnP programs easily from pictures.

Unisoft - www.unisoft-cim.com | 3 April, 2020

Yes agreed you're 100% right on that. You always want to go for the full CAD file or the XY rotation file first. But like a lot of contract manufacturers and some OEM's find they have to work with Gerber only data for certain projects. The Unisoft software is pretty quick you need to add around 5 to 10 minutes per 100 components to teach the shapes with gerber only data. Unfortunately there is really no other way around it with gerber only. https://www.unisoft-cim.com/gerber_connection.php Stay safe! rlarue (at) unisoft-cim.com - Rich Larue

Circuit cam and mydata | 9 April, 2020

Can not speak for CircuitCam is made by Aegis Software I veliveve sound like need to get understanding of how tool is supposed to work to extract-create centroid positions. Using Gerber Only is a pattern match and cacluate logic process - ie make package, calc a position centroid and assign to Ref des. Gerber has no component entities and to honest is worst format for assembly on its own. We need to rebuild any useful data from it.

PnP is actually more useful vs Gerber

Native CAD files EDA and or ODB++ (better still) enable more value in terms of getting data needed for assembly.

Valor MSS Process Prpearation Software can handle Gerber only and do above no issue and even save patterns extracted from the data to a client-named database in the system for future reuse. It has a OCR capability to capture the Silkscreen refdes also.

Best is Gerber + PnP, use smart software to merge the PnP to a gerber image , create parts and set polarity and then have the basics for SMT program genberation Valor MSS Process Preparation supports Mydata SMT program export very well, evven can model the Mydata parts Library to offer Virtual Sticky Tape Review prior to Export completed Mydata program.

End of day time and getting correct data right first time = operational savings.

Circuit cam and mydata | 10 April, 2020

We unfortunately use GERBER data to digitize boards more than any CAD. We are CM and many of our customers do not provide CAD. With some Legacy products, we still use 274-D Gerbers.

Spoiltforchoice

Circuit cam and mydata | 10 April, 2020

> We unfortunately use GERBER data to digitize <BR> > boards more than any CAD. We are CM and many of <BR> > our customers do not provide CAD. With some <BR> > Legacy products, we still use 274-D Gerbers. <BR> <BR>

That's a very sad state of affairs, but why is that, are people asking for it? We're a CM & with one exception, the only times I haven't had CAD by asking for it when it is not supplied in the initial datapack are when the customer is moving manufacture from a different contractor and that contractor or another 3rd party was also responsible for the design. In all those instances I have been lucky, the designs at least have a silkscreen to match refs to pads and one had full assembly layers that clearly identified every location with no need to guess at which location a ref marking might point at.

However plenty of designs don't generate an assembly layer in their Gerbers and plenty of silkscreens (when they exist) don't mark every component (or can't from ~0603 and below) or have mistakes or are ambiguous.

There have been a handful of occasions where our in-house capabilities don't meet the requirements of an assembly and we have had to outsource. Two of those places had rather had bizzare issues with the supplied Centroid data. One using Mirae machines said "its in the wrong format" and then spent 3 days teaching it manually and made mistakes (it was standard text/CSV output from CadStar and the raw project data if they wanted it, which you can then view & output with the free edition to your hearts content). The second had Samsung machines and muttered something about the data being reversed or some such nonsense, now apart from being a simple fix in excel, on Essemtec software at least "flipping" is built right into the data import tools and indeed that was true on the previous entry level p&p too. Much as I'd like to blame clients for some of these issues there are clearly assembly houses muddying the waters too.

Circuit cam and mydata | 10 April, 2020

Yes process engineers that work for contract manufacturers try to get the full CAD or XY rotation files from their clients unfortunately still many of their customers still give them only Gerber files for the PCB project.

Unisoft has had a focus on the CM market for over 30 years and our software can import either Gerber only files or full CAD files or XY rotation files or combinations - https://www.unisoft-cim.com/importers.php#Altium_Designer .

Stay safe!

rlarue (at) unisoft-cim.com

Rich Larue

Circuit cam and mydata | 10 April, 2020

Certain customers do give us CAD. USUALLY ODB++ but I've also gotten .ipc and .pcb .

Many of our customers bought or inherited a design, and therefore have no control to generate additional files. Or, as you mentioned, they had another manufacturer doing the design work, and when that relationship ended, all they got was gerbers and the BOM in the divorce.

I've even been sent a sample board to reverse engineer a BOM and gerbers from because they had no files. But that is few and far between.

Circuit cam and mydata | 10 April, 2020

You can make SMT PnP data from just Gerber BUT need reference to Refdes. Source for this is , as bad as a PDF overlay, Silkscreen layer, but best is PnP file.

Valor MSS PP can create PnP data just from Gerber, but need a reference data set to make this happen. Gerber on its own is pointless even if make parts , you need a refdes attribute.

Point is for SMT the PnP file is more valuable from a placement program point view but will of course have rotation - polarity issues - that's another discussion !!!

Having Gerber-Component Extraction software that can merge the PnP together is best start , than some sort of rotation neutralisation process is needed with a placement review before ant NC data can be error free ( not rotation issues and NC offset issues for asymmetrical part to land pads) to SMT systems..

End of day there is point solutions-software tools but most solve a portion of the overall assembly challenge - often just look at PnP centric and not full NPI process.

Gerber was never designed for SMT assembly ->> Fabrication Format.

With good tools Like Valor MSS PP you can handle the old (legacy flows) and of course better more modern flows all from one learning library solution = more effective first time right outputs

Circuit cam and mydata | 15 April, 2020

The point here is if you can't get the full CAD files or the XY rotation files and all you get his Gerbers and a BOM. Most all contract manufacturers and some OEM's at some time or another have to deal with Gerber only files. If you find yourself in that situation then one option is to use specially designed software for that scenario. With the Unisoft software you simply have to add approx. 5 to 10 minutes of teaching time per 100 components and then you'll have your reference designators, XY centers theta rotations, part numbers, etc. to program your Pick and Place assembly machines, AOI machines, create your process assembly documents, first article inspection, costing reports, etc.

Unisoft has thousands of customers and over 30 years in business with a focus on the CM market. So if Gerber is your only option, as most of our customers have experienced, then please visit https://www.unisoft-cim.com/gerber_connection.php or contact me directly. Stay safe!

rlarue (at) unisoft-cim.com

Rich Larue

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