To All,
This goes back a number of years & a few past lives but, the only other issue we ever had with even having a board outline or crop marks in a gerber file either on all or one file
was with fabricators overseas, no US fabricator ever had a problem with this.
It was interpreting where board outline was.
Inside line width, outside line width or center of line width. (Actually Protel/Altium I believe at one time gave you the ability to define this for a board ouline when they switched to an intelligent board outline?)
Now this fabricator should have compared gerber with actual dimensions on fabrication dwg and either questioned it or made it like the print.
But that did not happen they used the outside edge of line and boards were too big. If they were going to pick an edge vs center why they picked outside vs inside is a little strange but that is what happened.
Because of schedules and this being only a proto a slight bit of milling on our end solved the problem.

But I would tend to totally agree with Rick on this, actually having a board outline on all layers
has way more value to many other groups that just one place the fabricator. IMHO if a fabricator is complaining about the time
to delete just a board outline off of some files because they don't want it there maybe time to pick a diff fabricator. In all honesty
even for them when files are first loaded I would think its a nice way to see all files are at least lined up and that don't have to line them up on there end.
But like Rick said change can be difficult pending internal structure.

Bob

________________________________________
From: TechNet [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Smith, Rick [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Wednesday, August 08, 2012 9:27 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [TN] Board Outline on gerber files...Yes/No

Hi Barbara,

In my own experience having the outline on all layers has never been an issue to fabricators and none have commented to me otherwise. This is likely because the fabricators have the means to remove the outlines in less time than a heartbeat if they so desire.

Many organizations still use paper plots for Design reviews, at least internally. In this case the outline on all layers is beneficial to the Design Engineers and others for the purpose of quickly aligning the layers, particularly when internal layers have the pads removed. My opinion is that this benefit outweighs the few seconds that it takes for the fabricator to remove the outline.

That being said it really comes down to how embedded you are in your current process and how difficult it might be to change. If you no longer use paper plots then it may be easy to change to a single outline. If paper plots are still in use you may want to experiment by presenting a set of plots with and without outlines to one of the Design Engineers for his opinion. Bottom line though is whether or not the outline is on a single layer, such as a drill pattern layer or all layers makes little difference to a fabricator (or should anyways). You may also want to check with the particular fabricator to ask how much time and effort (cost and schedule delay) it is for them to remove the extraneous outlines. But in a nutshell, unless it is a small matter to change your current process I would recommend continue doing what you are doing.

Regards,
Rick

-----Original Message-----
From: TechNet [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Barbara Burcham
Sent: Tuesday, July 31, 2012 10:55 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [TN] Board Outline on gerber files...Yes/No

I have run up against the question of putting the board outline on each gerber file. One fabricator who needs it on at least on file.
What do fabricators need regarding this?
What about board outline on the stencil gerbers for the Stencil Makers?

Regards,
Barbara Burcham, CID
Sr. PCB Designer


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