Re: [PROTEL EDA USERS]: Drill Drawing

["Geoff Harland" <gharland@ingenico.com.au>]

> Well, I guess I had a misunderstanding with the fab. site. I submitted
> the complete set of gerber files (incl. the ones called Drill Drawing and
> Drill Guide). However, they claim that the never got the 'drill files'.
> Now, I generated the NC Drill code (which pretty much is a bunch of x and
> y locations, right?) and I hope that will make them happy.What is the
> difference between the 'drill drawing' (i.e. gerber file with location of
> holes *.gd1) and the NC Drill files (generated by Protel as *.TXT *.DRR
> and on other one which I can't remember right now) in terms of
> fabricating the board? Are both files needed or is one preferred over the
> other one? This is the first time I submit a board so I'm quite a novice.
>
> Hans J. Eberhart

In general, PCB manufacturers prefer the provision of the NC Drill files
(.TXT is ASCII format, .DRL is binary format, and .DRR is a drill usage
report file in ASCII format), as these permit automated drilling of PCBs.
The Drill Drawing and Drill Guide layers are a legacy from an earlier era
when holes within PCBs were drilled manually; the Drill Drawing layer
provides details of the size of each hole being drilled, and the Drill Guide
layer provides details of the location of each hole being drilled (by the
use of crosshair "target" patterns). (As such, these files are not suited
for automating the drilling of PCBs.)

As such, I recommend that you provide all three of the Drill files (.TXT,
....DRL, and .DRR) to the PCB manufacturer, and optionally provide Gerber files
produced from the Drill Drawing and Drill Guide layers. (I don't send such
Gerber files myself, and have yet to be requested to actually provide these
files as well).

However, I customarily produce printouts from the Drill Drawing layer, as
this facilitates checking/documenting the size of each hole being drilled in
the PCB. And as for the Drill Guide layer, I often use this as a
"scratchpad" layer, and/or for holding details which I don't want reproduced
within either test printouts or Gerber files. (This is less of an issue with
Protel 99 SE, as it now provides 16 mechanical layers, but earlier versions
of Protel only provided 4 mechanical layers, and as such, the Drill Guide
layer was really useful to have available for such "odds and ends"
purposes.)

Regards,
Geoff Harland.
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