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Convertion Gerber to P&P data

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Mark

#38774

Convertion Gerber to P&P data | 3 January, 2006

Hallo all, I just looking for software (freeware and comercial) to convert Gerber files to CAD data file. Our customer does not have the CAD data for pick and place machines and i have only Gerber. Is there any software which can convert to X,Y, rotation from Gerber files.

Thank you for any help.

Regards Mark

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URL

#38775

Convertion Gerber to P&P data | 3 January, 2006

You can convert from Gerber to DXF which CAD can read, but it still won't give you P&P data.

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DannyJ

#38777

Convertion Gerber to P&P data | 3 January, 2006

Caveat... I do not work for either company nor am I endorsed for this recommendation...

We use CircuitCam for our needs. Works pretty well and allows you to keep several databases and is modular. Very pricey.

The other software I have heard of is Unicam. I've never used it, but the people I have worked with in the past say it's pretty good. We went with CC for a specific company that we contract for...

The other option is to send the information to the manufacturer of your machinery. I have done this with Panasonic in the past and they were very helpful.

HTH

Dan

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DannyJ

#38778

Convertion Gerber to P&P data | 3 January, 2006

endorsed=compensated... Amazing, get three days off, I need to be retrained!

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JW

#38802

Convertion Gerber to P&P data | 4 January, 2006

Another software option for you maybe GC-Powerplace by GraphiCode. Before purchasing CircuitCam, we used an older version; GC-Place, with good results. Sorry, I don't know pricing. Our version is very flexible (creating Gerber, Gerber to DXF, output module creation / modifying) but slower to program boards and poor check sheet capabilities compared to CircuitCam. They also have a freeware Gerber viewer (GC-Prevue) that is very useful.

P.S. Just a user... no connection to GraphiCode or CircuitCam.

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mark

#38814

Convertion Gerber to P&P data | 4 January, 2006

hi thank you for informations.

one questions this software GC-Powerplace is it automatic generation from Gerber or you have to teach it.

Regards Mark

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#38816

Convertion Gerber to P&P data | 4 January, 2006

Viewmaster may help. I talked with them in the past about using Gerbers to generate P&P data. I haven't used it but know where you are coming from.

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JAX

#38835

Convertion Gerber to P&P data | 5 January, 2006

Nothing is automatic from Gerber. Gerber is stupid data. (Pads are defined, not components)

I think you are looking for Centroid Outputs not CAD. Cad defines the components on the board as well as the board itself. Centroid gives Ref. Desig., X, Y, Theta

Any Gerber Viewable Software should be able to export a centroid file. The ease at which you can tell the Software what apertures make up a component and what the orientation of that component is should be the deciding factor...

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#38965

Convertion Gerber to P&P data | 11 January, 2006

I've used an old version (maybe 7 or 8 years old) of GC-Place to convert gerber to centroid data. It is semi-automatic. If I remember correctly we'd start by selecting the pads for the largest components first. The software would find matching groups of pads and their centroids. You would then be able to assign a ref des to each. It also had silkscreen character recognition.. I think... But we never used it.

I believe the software also ships with a library of industry standard footprints, so you can tell it to search through the gerber file and automatically identify groups of pads that define components. A few years ago I looked into an updated version. I'm pretty sure they now offer a GenCAD output.

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#38990

Convertion Gerber to P&P data | 12 January, 2006

Good morning Mark,

CAM (Computer Aided Manufacturing) products are designed to solve such tasks. You can try CAM350 for example. CAM350 understands different ASCII exported data from different CAD systems. CAD ASCII export contains all necessary information about components and centroid calculation takes only 5-10 minutes. If you have pure GERBER only (vector data) the task becomes much harder. You have to define all necessary components and make centroid calculation after this.

I know that Panasonic can offer such GERBER scanning systems, but possibly they are designed for Panasonic machines only.

Hope this helps.

BR, Pavel.

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#39062

Convertion Gerber to P&P data | 13 January, 2006

Mark

If you have not found what you want yet I can do the conversion for you. Let me know how many parts and I will give you a quote.

dphilbrick@worldeb.com

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Paul Fedorys

#50740

Convertion Gerber to P&P data | 19 June, 2007

At Gerberdata.com we use CAM350 from Downstream Technologies to translate gerber files for both SMT and Test fixtures. We also use CAM350 for Reverse Engineering Gerber files into a complete CAD database. Visit our website for more information. -Paul

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#50748

Convertion Gerber to P&P data | 19 June, 2007

there is manual method of doing it you download GC prevue

which you will able to open up the gerber

once you have imported your gerber you can select a reference point and press Z on your keyboard and then you can go to each of the component and write the X-Y coordinates. Alternatively you can buy GC powerplace

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#50768

Convertion Gerber to P&P data | 20 June, 2007

Hi Mark, You can use the software called GC-PLACE to convert centroid, there are alots of SMT process engineer using it.

Regards Steve USA STENCILS

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#50899

Convertion Gerber to P&P data | 29 June, 2007

Try unisoft who advertise in this forum. Looking at this software myself. May be giving it a try soon. http://www.unisoft-cim.com/services.html

Steve

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