Gregg, This would've been my first response, but unfortunately you might be stuck with what you have, or you might not know which fab house might do your boards. Couple of other suggestions: 1) Use the gerber 274X option, with the imbedded aperture file. 2) Get a CAM system (DFM) in house to verify what is going to the fab house. I've used Valor, it the top of the line, and I've used Gerbtool to verify my databases. 3) Make sure the fab house is getting an IPC-D-356 netlist to check the database with. This will do a netlist check of the gerbers, and would've caught the plane connections missing. If the fab house can't use the 356 netlist GET ANOTHER FAB HOUSE! A good fab house should be calling you on most every job to verify things with you. Especially if you're doing high density designs, they will normally call and verify aspect ratios, breakouts, minimum annular rings, etc. Good luck, Mitch Morey >>> Steve Hawn <[log in to unmask]> 03/05/98 09:58am >>> Gregg, Use another board house! Any competent CAD operator at the board house should have caught the fact you had no power plane connections. I recommend finding a board house you can rely on to help you achieve a successful PWB. Steve Hawn Precision Digital Images Gregg Klawson wrote: > > We just had a couple of PWB types built incorrectly due to bad electronic > data being sent to our board houses. Unfortunately we did not catch either > problem until we had fully assembled the boards. > > Problem A was due to the wrong aperture file being sent out resulting in no > power plane connections. Problem B was due to an old design tool which > did not show a "filled in" power plane which was required. No netlist data > was available for either design. > > We would like to continue with an all electronic process but need some > fool-proof checks that will detect if we send some incorrect file(s)/data > or our board house does something wrong. I'm sure companies are doing this > sucessfully all the time (and all electronic). How are people making this > process work well for them? > --- > Gregg Klawson > GTE Government Systems Corp, Taunton, Massachusetts, USA > [log in to unmask], telephone +1.508.880.1822 > > The views expressed are the author's and do not necessarily reflect the > official position of GTE or any of its subsidiaries. ################################################################ TechNet E-Mail Forum provided as a free service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8c ################################################################ To subscribe/unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the body: To subscribe: SUBSCRIBE TechNet <your full name> To unsubscribe: SIGNOFF TechNet ################################################################ Please visit IPC web site (http://jefry.ipc.org/forum.htm) for additional information. For the technical support contact Dmitriy Sklyar at [log in to unmask] or 847-509-9700 ext.311 ################################################################ ################################################################ TechNet E-Mail Forum provided as a free service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8c ################################################################ To subscribe/unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the body: To subscribe: SUBSCRIBE TechNet <your full name> To unsubscribe: SIGNOFF TechNet ################################################################ Please visit IPC web site (http://jefry.ipc.org/forum.htm) for additional information. For the technical support contact Dmitriy Sklyar at [log in to unmask] or 847-509-9700 ext.311 ################################################################