Introduction

Communicating correct information about drill and slot data from a CAD system to the PCB manufacturer is not always as easy as it would seem.

In most cases all information is clearly available in the CAD system:

• Drill diameters
• Indication whether a drill is a via drill
• Indication whether is drill or slot is plated or not
• …

Some of this information is lost during the transfer because the data is transferred using a less than perfect file format (Excellon or Gerber).

The automated input processes used at Eurocircuits tries to retrieve as much information as possible from the supplied data.

Not only by reading the drill files, but also by combining it with the other available data to determine for example whether a drill is plated or not.

Because it is not always possible to reconstruct all information, we have developed a new tool as part of our PCB Visualizer product.

An editor to verify and correct the drill and slot information for a PCB design.

This tool can be used to quickly solve issues that arise due to data transfer.

Basic changes to the board data are of course also possible but should be done on the CAD data as much as possible.