Great. Thanks for the input. One other thing. I have a buddy who was looking
for a free Gerber editor for making minor artwork changes. He had some
boards done outside and needs to make some changes to fix a few boo-boos
when he did the design. You know of any? He only has Windows. I run Windows
and Linux so either would work. I could make the changes for him.

--
Regards;

Leland C. Scott
KC8LDO

"The most reliable components are
the ones you leave out."

By Gordon Bell, father of the
minicomputer at DEC.



"K7ITM" wrote in message
...
On Jun 13, 12:36 pm, "Leland C. Scott" wrote:
"Harold E. Johnson" wrote in
messagenews:INSYl.740928$yE1.253509@attbi_s21...



"Leland C. Scott" wrote in message
m...
Does anybody have or know where to get a utility to convert from
ExpressPCB file format to a standard Gerber file? If not any info on
the
file format itself?

Yup. You can pay Express PCB for the file. (No utility) $75 the last
time
I bought one.

That's not going to happen. I know I can get some reverse engineering
software that will import the layout as a graphic then trace over it using
the PCB layout software to generate standard Gerber files. I'm looking for
something easy and I'm not paying them $75 a pop for each small board to
convert.

I also found out there maybe some utilities out, still looking, there that
can convert from an exported PDF, or EPS file, to a Gerber format too.
Getting a PDF printer driver is easy. Use the driver when printing out a
copy of the board layout.

--
Regards;

Leland C. Scott
KC8LDO

"Brilliance is typically the act of an
individual, but incredible stupidity
can usually be traced to an
organization."

Jon Bentley

FWIW, I've been using FreePCB for layouts the past year or so, and
find it's pretty well documented and easy to use. It produces
Gerbers, and of course you already know that once you have those, you
can find lots of different places to order boards, some faster than
others, some cheaper than others. I do end up having to build
footprints for FreePCB fairly often, but even that's not too bad, and
once built, I have them for the future.

Cheers,
Tom

On Jun 15, 9:06*pm, "Leland C. Scott" wrote:
Great. Thanks for the input. One other thing. I have a buddy who was looking
for a free Gerber editor for making minor artwork changes. He had some
boards done outside and needs to make some changes to fix a few boo-boos
when he did the design. You know of any? He only has Windows. I run Windows
and Linux so either would work. I could make the changes for him.


....
Well, I'm using ViewMate from PentaLogix. I don't do anything very
complex with it, basically just view my FreePCB outputs to make sure
everything is OK. I also use it to print the Gerbers for assembly
documentation and to make my own boards at home--I like the immediacy
of being able to make a board in an hour or two. ViewMate's free...
BUT it won't let you save changes. You have to spring for the upgrade
to ViewMaster EZ for $50 to be able to save (and do some other
things). There may be free solutions, but since ViewMate does what I
need, I haven't gone looking for them.

For fixing boo-boos, I'd a lot rather go back to the PC design program
and make the changes there, rather than hand-editing Gerbers, but I
suppose there are good reasons to modify the Gerbers directly. I do
recall some hassles trying to get my layout program do what I wanted
with a solder mask recently, and was really tempted to try to modify
the Gerbers!

Cheers,
Tom

Tom;

I understand your points. My buddy does not have access to the software that
was used for the layout. That's why he wanted the Gerber editor.

What I have found so far is a free (GPL'd) Gerber file viewer, no editor.

http://gerbv.sourceforge.net/

There are both Windows and Linux versions available for down load. It has a
few bugs but so far as a viewer it works remarkably well.

--
Regards;

Leland C. Scott
KC8LDO

"Brilliance is typically the act of an
individual, but incredible stupidity
can usually be traced to an
organization."

Jon Bentley

"K7ITM" wrote in message
...
On Jun 15, 9:06 pm, "Leland C. Scott" wrote:
Great. Thanks for the input. One other thing. I have a buddy who was
looking
for a free Gerber editor for making minor artwork changes. He had some
boards done outside and needs to make some changes to fix a few boo-boos
when he did the design. You know of any? He only has Windows. I run
Windows
and Linux so either would work. I could make the changes for him.


....
Well, I'm using ViewMate from PentaLogix. I don't do anything very
complex with it, basically just view my FreePCB outputs to make sure
everything is OK. I also use it to print the Gerbers for assembly
documentation and to make my own boards at home--I like the immediacy
of being able to make a board in an hour or two. ViewMate's free...
BUT it won't let you save changes. You have to spring for the upgrade
to ViewMaster EZ for $50 to be able to save (and do some other
things). There may be free solutions, but since ViewMate does what I
need, I haven't gone looking for them.

For fixing boo-boos, I'd a lot rather go back to the PC design program
and make the changes there, rather than hand-editing Gerbers, but I
suppose there are good reasons to modify the Gerbers directly. I do
recall some hassles trying to get my layout program do what I wanted
with a solder mask recently, and was really tempted to try to modify
the Gerbers!

Cheers,
Tom

What I have found so far is a free (GPL'd) Gerber file viewer, no editor.

How much editing do you want to do?

Gerber files are just text. You can edit with a normal text editor.
As long as you have a good viewer you can see if your edits did what
you want.

--
These are my opinions, not necessarily my employer's. I hate spam.

Hal;

May have to reroute a few traces that cross a significant length of the
board to fix some design errors. I haven't looked at the raw Gerber files to
see how easy doing the editing by hand word be to do.


--
Regards;

Leland C. Scott
KC8LDO

"The most reliable components are
the ones you leave out."

By Gordon Bell, father of the
minicomputer at DEC.

"Hal Murray" wrote in message
...

What I have found so far is a free (GPL'd) Gerber file viewer, no editor.

How much editing do you want to do?

Gerber files are just text. You can edit with a normal text editor.
As long as you have a good viewer you can see if your edits did what
you want.

--
These are my opinions, not necessarily my employer's. I hate spam.

In article ,
"Leland C. Scott" writes:
Hal;

May have to reroute a few traces that cross a significant length of the
board to fix some design errors. I haven't looked at the raw Gerber files to
see how easy doing the editing by hand word be to do.

It's not the length that matters but the number of segments.

I didn't mean to suggest that it would be simple. It would take
a bit of trial and error to get going. You would probably have
to find some specs for the gerber file format.

I'd probably do the routing on paper and then transfer it to
the gerber file. The important point is that you can use the
viewer to show what you have so you know if you got it right.

--
These are my opinions, not necessarily my employer's. I hate spam.

Hal;

I'll suggest that to my buddy and see if he has any luck. I didn't consider
trying that method. The board he has is about 10 by 12 inches, double sided
with around 40 through hole chips on it with several dozen discrete
components sprinkled around them. That could get very interesting.

Thanks for the suggestion and this may be what he will have to do. The free
Gerber viewer I found will come in handy for checking the results as you
pointed out. I'm sure I can find the spec's for the Gerber file format on
line some place so that shouldn't be a problem.

Thanks;

Leland C. Scott
KC8LDO

"The most reliable components are
the ones you leave out."

By Gordon Bell, father of the
minicomputer at DEC.


"Hal Murray" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"Leland C. Scott" writes:
Hal;

May have to reroute a few traces that cross a significant length of the
board to fix some design errors. I haven't looked at the raw Gerber files
to
see how easy doing the editing by hand word be to do.

It's not the length that matters but the number of segments.

I didn't mean to suggest that it would be simple. It would take
a bit of trial and error to get going. You would probably have
to find some specs for the gerber file format.

I'd probably do the routing on paper and then transfer it to
the gerber file. The important point is that you can use the
viewer to show what you have so you know if you got it right.

--
These are my opinions, not necessarily my employer's. I hate spam.

On 16 June, 05:06, "Leland C. Scott" wrote:
Great. Thanks for the input. One other thing. I have a buddy who was looking
for a free Gerber editor for making minor artwork changes. He had some
boards done outside and needs to make some changes to fix a few boo-boos
when he did the design. You know of any? He only has Windows. I run Windows
and Linux so either would work. I could make the changes for him.

The Pulsonix software I use has can import Gerber files and edit them,
but it isn't free.

Leon

"Leon" wrote in message
...

The Pulsonix software I use has can import Gerber files and edit them,
but it isn't free.

You have a rough idea as to the cost for the bare-bones PCB core? I didn't
see any prices on the web sites from a quick look..


--
Regards;

Leland C. Scott
KC8LDO

"The most reliable components are
the ones you leave out."

By Gordon Bell, father of the
minicomputer at DEC.

"Leland C. Scott" wrote in message
...
You have a rough idea as to the cost for the bare-bones PCB core? I didn't
see any prices on the web sites from a quick look..

That almost always implies at least four digits. :-)

You pretty much have to call up your local Pulsonix distributor to get
pricing -- it tends to vary significantly worldwide. As of a little more than
a year ago, any Pulsonix suite that included PCB layout was $2k in the U.S.
A full-featured suite with a handful of the "spendy" options (network
licensing, database connectivity, chip packaging toolkit, etc.) would tend to
top $10k in the U.S.