gerbers, universal viewer and or editor?

[pucho812]

Does anyone know of a way to look at generated gerbers and or way to make changes? 

I've  been given some files  that were made with custom software from a pcb house, and trying to figure out a way to import them into my pcb software so I can regenerate a gerber and shop around for price comparison.

I know it's vague but I can export from the custom software into a .dfx and although my usual pcb software reads .dfx the files are unable to open.

I may just have to redraw the layouts. any suggestions?

 

[Brian Roth]

I am still a nooob with all this, but there's a lot of info here:

http://gerbv.geda-project.org/

They say there is a Windoze version in addition to various Linux versions.  Further down that page are links to numerous other goodies.

Bri

 

[pucho812]

hmmm I'll check it out...

hmmmmm just need something that can convert my pcb123 file into a standard file I can either import or edit in some way without issue. look like will be faster for me to just redraw it. PCB123 seems to not want to play with anything else which is fine as I never use it.

 

[Brian Roth]

In another thread in this section, I talked about my "back story", going back a few decades, about making PCB board layouts.

The Freebie PCB123 app was tempting, but I've chosen to stick with something else so I wasn't locked into one PCB house.  My choice thus far is Kicad (which DOES include a Gerber viewer....haven't gotten that far yet).

I presume you know that a Gerber PC board "project"  includes multiple related files.  This listing told me a LOT as I wandered into this crazy world:

http://oshpark.com/guidelines

Bri

 

[ramshackles]

KiCAD has a gerber viewer and you can export gerbers to KiCAD PCB files, which can be edited in PCBNew.

The footprint outlines often get changed a bit (especially if the gerber in question has some exotic parts), but these can be edited and the pads are always in the right place..

 

[pucho812]

I prefer proteus by labcenter.  it does a ton including built in spice sim. It's done me well but it cannot import the pcb 123 stuff my buddy does. It does do gerber viewing as well.

At work we use altium, but that is too expensive to have for hobby projects.

 

[JohnRoberts]

There are free gerber viewers around but little economic incentive to make cheap cad systems talk to each other.

JR

 

[pucho812]

exactly. which is what I have run into. I like having the option of being able to shop around for board houses for the small runs and not be stuck with any one particular house.

 

[JohnRoberts]

The board house will generally read anything you can send them... the lack of economic incentive to communicate freely is between cad vendors.

JR

 

[bruno2000]

I use ViewPlot.  No free editor, but nice viewer.
Best,
Bruno2000

 

[Richard Crowley]

Remember that PCB123 and similar online board operations deliberately use non-standard, proprietary file formats. To require "loyalty" to their service if you use their design software.  OTOH, Gerber is an "open standard".  There are many free and low-cost PC design applications that output Gerber, as well as several Gerber file viewers.

Remember that Gerber is only a "dumb" description of geometric shapes. It does not retain any of the information about the original circuit or component layout.  You need the schematic file or the layout file if you want to go back and change something.

 

[pucho812]

nice... wasn't looking to change things so much as open the file from pcb123 in what I normally use for schematic capture and layour so I could then generate a file I could send elsewhere as opposed to pcb123. but no way to make that work properly so I ended up just redrawing it. problem solved.

 

[Jarno]

I recently installed this:
GC Prevue
It's not very intuitive, and you get some splash screens, but there are some editing possibilities, good enough for the occasional check.

 

[audiomixer]

I find the gerber import into DipTace works quite well....

- Michael