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Parts information from Gerber files

Parts information from Gerber files

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Anyone know of any good, low cost gerber tools, to help with... - Jul 14, 2003 by

good - check low cost - check getting part position info -... - Jul 14, 2003 by davef

But I think that these free products are basically viewers- ... - Jul 14, 2003 by

No, you're correct. Meeting most of your criteria, Excel ... - Jul 14, 2003 by davef

DAVE- We often use Excel for data manipulation. If the Ger... - Jul 14, 2003 by CAL

Perhaps the inexpensive program called SMT-Maestro can be of... - Jul 15, 2003 by Daan

If you just need gerber to placement list processing, then y... - Jul 15, 2003 by

Hi Dave! You said nothing about the PCB program you use. I... - Jul 17, 2003 by Evtimov

I have been using Camtastic for 3+ years and have ejoyed usi... - Jul 17, 2003 by

Dave

#25158

Parts information from Gerber files | 14 July, 2003

Anyone know of any good, low cost gerber tools, to help with getting part position and rotation info out of gerber files?

Thanks

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davef

#25160

Parts information from Gerber files | 14 July, 2003

good - check low cost - check getting part position info - check getting part rotation info - ooops, dang!!! Hey, 3 otta 4 aint bad, especially when you consider it's FREE!!!

3 Drawing viewers 3a Gerber viewing (viewer) View Mate (View only) - http://www.lavenir.com

CamCAD (View only) - http://www.camcad.com

GC-Prevue (View only) - http://www.graphicode.com

PC Gerber II (View & limited data size editing) - http://www.ecam.com/us_home.htm

3b ODB++ viewers http://www.camcad.com/ODB++_Viewer_Download.asp http://www.rsi-inc.com/Downloads/shareware

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Dave

#25162

Parts information from Gerber files | 14 July, 2003

But I think that these free products are basically viewers- I want an application that outputs a file of positions and rotations, to make a placement file. I think GC PowerPlace does it, but that looks expensive!

Am I just misunderstanding what these solutions do? Any other ideas?

Thanks

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davef

#25164

Parts information from Gerber files | 14 July, 2003

No, you're correct.

Meeting most of your criteria, Excel seems to be the best choice.

As an alternative to GC-Place, consider also CircuitCAM [ http://www.aiscorp.com/products_npi_circuitcam.htm ]

We have no relationship nor receive benefit from the company referenced in the above link.

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CAL

#25165

Parts information from Gerber files | 14 July, 2003

DAVE- We often use Excel for data manipulation. If the Gerber data is available in TXT format then you can define the delimiter (Tab, collon, comma)and works OK for what it is.

Cal www.ctdi.com

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Daan

#25166

Parts information from Gerber files | 15 July, 2003

Perhaps the inexpensive program called SMT-Maestro can be of help for some of your data manipulation ? Like Excel it doesn't take gerber directly, but it can cope with any delimited ascii file. A trial is available at http://www.smtinfo.net/smtmaestro.html

Otherwise I'd recommend GC Place, expensive but it does a very good job !

Daan

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GerberGrab

#25176

Parts information from Gerber files | 15 July, 2003

If you just need gerber to placement list processing, then you might be interested in GerberGrab. It's not as sophisticated as the more expensive packages that include this capability, but it's getting better all the time and it's much more affordable (just �100).

You can download and try it out for free at http://www.gerbergrab.co.uk

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Evtimov

#25196

Parts information from Gerber files | 17 July, 2003

Hi Dave! You said nothing about the PCB program you use. I sue Protel99SE and there is an option "Create P&P file". It's txt with all info you need. Ithink there are versions for free in http://www. May be you should try with changing your software with better. There are many good programs you could try with. Good luck!

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ssnow

#25208

Parts information from Gerber files | 17 July, 2003

I have been using Camtastic for 3+ years and have ejoyed using this low end software. Originally all I wanted was to digitize paste layers and learned it was much more than I needed at the time. approx $500. auto aperature detection is so much better than free GC preview.

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