On Thu, 23 Feb 2017 15:32:12 +0000 (GMT), "Dave Plowman (News)"
wrote:

In article ,
Don Pearce wrote:
I went for PCB Train (Newbury Electronics) on a recommendation after being
told they were very helpful to a newbie. And so they were. I'm not using a
pukka PCB prog to produce the gerber files, so needed a little guidance.
Now I've got just what those are a bit clearer in my mind, I could
probably use a cheaper alternative. I went for the cheaper 4 week
turnround as there's no rush for them. So they should arrive next week.

I use all free software for this. LTSpice creates the schematic and
simulates it, and it creates a netlist. Then Freepcb reads the netlist
and lets you create the artwork really easily. It generates the
Gerbers in exactly the format that dirtypcbs want. But you are
probably right to use PCBtrain - dirtypcb offer no help.

Basically I've got lots and lots of drawings of PCBs on file. All done for
the standard photo process you can use at home. Not involved multi-layer
surface mount stuff. So needed to know what was required for gerber, so I
could convert them. (My CAD prog will load them, and produce gerber from
them. But you do need to make sure things in the original files translate
OK, and modify if needed) It's been quite fun learning.

It's only a hobby, and I enjoy doing (fairly simple) layouts etc by hand.
Obviously if doing the sort of things you do, I'd have to learn up the
standard software for that.

True, but both those programmes are incredibly easy to learn.

d

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