- Program To Open A Pcb File
- Open Pcb File Online
- Software To Open Pcx Files
- Software To Open Pcb File
- Pcb File Types
Ok,i tried some.Now i open the other files(.PHO) and i can see the layouts from the zip LMX9838Dongle CAM,but none of them opens the.pcb.Can you open the.pcb file? I tried also pads viewer which has.pcb files but says 'Job not compatible with current version of program' unfotunatelly.Try it if you want. Anyway,i think i can work with the. Free PCB is an open source PCB design software for Windows systems. Even though it doesn’t have an auto-router tool, a free web based routing tool called Freerouting can be used for partial or full auto-routing. The FreePCB software can support up to 16 copper layers. Proprietary or Paid Software.
Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs) are backbones of electronic devices and equipment. The increasing density of circuits and decreasing size trend of electronic products lead circuit boards to develop into higher complexity. Holes or vias, responsible for electrical connections between layers and corresponding functions a board will implement according to design requirement, won't effectively work unless they are suitably designed or manufactured. For unsuitable manufacturing, it can be easily solved by selecting a reliable PCB manufacturer. The solution to the other issue, that is, unsuitable design, depends largely on circuit board design engineers who have to create integrated and reliable design files based on which PCB fabricators carry out manufacturing.
It's believed that NC drill file generation has been plaguing most PCB design engineers for a long time. Therefore, it's necessary to summarize design guidelines based on leading PCB design software.
NC drill file, short for numeric control drill file, refers to a type of file regulating all the information concerning hole or via drilling requirement including tooling size, hole size and location. A sample NC drill file is shown below;
Program To Open A Pcb File
It's of significant necessity for PCB design engineers to create NC drill files since a lot of trouble can be avoided when PCB files are converted into NC drill files and Gerber files. Nevertheless, the factual situation is that a number of engineers tend to send PCB files directly to PCB manufacturer without converting them into NC drill files or Gerber files. They have been used to finishing PCB design files or exporting the design files from PCB cloning software and sending them to circuit board manufacturers.
The ordinary workflow is that after receiving PCB design files, board fabricators have to transform them into NC drill files and Gerber files before manufacturing. Because electronic engineers working in PCB fabrication house understand printed circuit boards from a completely different perspective from PCB engineers do. The generated Gerber files may not be what PCB designers expect. For example, some PCB design engineers would like to define component parameters in design files but they don't want the information to be shown on the final product. If this point fails to be indicated by PCB design engineers, those information will be left on end product with possible scrap generated. Furthermore, in the process of Gerber files generation, some issues or indefinite aspects may be caused due to software version differentiations.
Therefore, the Optimal Solution is that PCB design engineers should convert their design files into Gerber files with NC drill files created as well that will then be sent to PCB manufacturers, based on which unnecessary trouble can be avoided.
NC drill files can be generated by nearly all PCB design software with its ordinary format as Excellon that was originally a manufacturer of CNC (Computer Numerical Control) systems for drillers and routers. Owing to its long life and active role in PCB drilling and routing equipment, Excellon has been accepted and coined as a set of industry standards.
Excellon is widely applied for standard CNC drilling and routing as it is capable of specifying machine definite info such as drill feed and speed.
In the main interface of Altium Designer, click File>>Fabrication Outputs>>NC Drill Files sequently and come to NC Drill Setup dialogue in which options need to be specified including NC Drill Format, Leading/Trailing Zeroes, Coordinate Positions etc.
Units of data in NC Drill Files can be either inches or millimeters that should be compatible with that of Gerber Files.
When it comes to Format, 3 selections are available: 2:3, 2:4 and 2:5 among which 2:3 features the lowest resolution whereas 2:5 features the highest resolution. Prior to deciding which format, it's necessary to consult your contract PCB manufacturer to determine whether which format is compatible with their manufacturing level.
Zero suppression drives NC Drill Files to be fit and neat and relies on PCB designers' application habits and convenience. When Suppress leading zeroes is picked, starting zeroes will be removed while when Suppress trailing zeroes is picked, ending zeroes will be removed.
Coordinate Positions contain two alternatives: absolute origin and relative origin, either of which should be chosen according to PCB designer's specific requirement. Moreover, it should be the same as Coordinate Positions regulated in Gerber Files.
Other items can be picked if necessary for projects. With all items determined, press OK to generate NC Drill Files that will be saved in the default path of sub-folder under the folder containing Project File.
How to Generate NC Drill File by Cadence Allegro (OrCAD)?
Different from Altium Designer, the default format of NC Drill Files exported by Cadence Allegro is not Excellon's. Therefore, prior to real generation of NC Drill Files, it's necessary to set concerning parameters by clicking Manufacture>>NC>>NC Parameters to enter NC Parameters dialogue.
In NC Parameters dialogue, items of Output file and Excellon format need to be determined. When it comes to Code in Output file, it's generally accepted that ASCII is picked since it is regarded as a newer type of code compared with EIA.
To generate an NC Drill File with a format of Excellon, it's necessary to click before Enhanced Excellon format.
For zero suppression, it's necessary to click before Leading or Trailing zero suppression based on PCB designer's project needs and demand or just in order to be in conformance with Gerber Files.
After items' determination, click Close button and NC Parameters dialogue will be escaped.
Then comes NC Drill dialogue by clicking Manufacture>>NC>>NC Drill.
Open Pcb File Online
After finish determining items in this dialogue, press Drill to end up Drill Files generation. The created NC Drill Files can be found in the default file folder.
To generate CAM output from PADS software, open PCB design file in PADS and click File>>CAM>>Define CAM Documents sequently.
When it comes to a drill layer, select it and click Edit whereas for layers with no demand of drilling, directly click Add.
Software To Open Pcx Files
In Edit Document dialogue window, press Drill and Device Setup button to specify format of NC Drill Files in NC Drill Setup window.
To specify format of NC Drill Files, first press Excellon button at the left top of this window.
In this window, you can see lots of items that are similar to those discussed in previous PCB design software. For Output Type, select ASCII. For Units, Zero Suppress and Coordinate, pick up the corresponding one. With these completed, press OK button.
Different PCB design engineers hold different preferences to their applied software so that they have to conform to different methods of generating NC drill files to fulfill requirement and demands of PCB fabricators. Although different PCB design software differ from each other in terms of NC Drill Files exporting, there's a cure-all rule that parameters applied in NC Drill Files must be compatible with those in Gerber Files so that reliability of end products will be greatly enhanced and strengthened.
Next articleHow to Generate Gerber Files based on Different PCB Design Software
File type | Printed Circuit Board Format |
Developer | N/A |
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What is a PCB file?
PCB file format was developed for purposes related to electronics. PCB is a text file that stores a project of printed circuit board. The solution guarantees proper board layout and connections between the board’s components.
Finished projects are then used in PCB manufacturing process. PCB files can be viewed and editied using dedicated applications, though users may encounter some format compatibility issues.
Program(s) that can open the .PCB file
Windows
Linux
How to open PCB files
If you cannot open the PCB file on your computer - there may be several reasons. The first and most important reason (the most common) is the lack of a suitable software that supports PCB among those that are installed on your device.
A very simple way to solve this problem is to find and download the appropriate application. The first part of the task has already been done – the software supporting the PCB file can be found in the table. Now just download and install the appropriate application.
Possible problems with the PCB format files
The inability to open and operate the PCB file does not necessarily mean that you do not have an appropriate software installed on your computer. There may be other problems that also block our ability to operate the Printed Circuit Board Format file. Below is a list of possible problems.
- Corruption of a PCB file which is being opened
- Incorrect links to the PCB file in registry entries.
- Accidental deletion of the description of the PCB from the Windows registry
- Incomplete installation of an application that supports the PCB format
- The PCB file which is being opened is infected with an undesirable malware.
- The computer does not have enough hardware resources to cope with the opening of the PCB file.
- Drivers of equipment used by the computer to open a PCB file are out of date.
If you are sure that all of these reasons do not exist in your case (or have already been eliminated), the PCB file should operate with your programs without any problem. If the problem with the PCB file has not been solved, it may be due to the fact that in this case there is also another rare problem with the PCB file. In this case, the only you can do is to ask for assistance of a professional staff.
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How to associate the file with an installed software?
Software To Open Pcb File
If you want to associate a file with a new program (e.g. my-file.PCB) you have two ways to do it. The first and the easiest one is to right-click on the selected PCB file. From the drop-down menu select 'Choose default program', then click 'Browse' and find the desired program. The whole operation must be confirmed by clicking OK. The second and more difficult to do is associate the PCB file extension to the corresponding software in the Windows Registry.
Is there one way to open unknown files?
Pcb File Types
Many files contain only simple text data. It is possible that while opening unknown files (e.g. PCB) with a simple text editor like Windows Notepad will allow us to see some of the data encoded in the file. This method allows you to preview the contents of many files, but probably not in such a structure as a program dedicated to support them.