Highlight select holes before exporting Gerbers?

[Anonymous]

Hello all, I am testing my own PCB so I'm drilling holes of interest onto a separate test board/fixture. I'm using the PCB-GCode ULP (http://pcbgcode.org/) in order to export Gerbers and drill files directly from Eagle. Since I'm only interested in testing a few holes scattered throughout the board, is it possible to select specific holes to export using the ULP instead of exporting every hole and via? The holes of interest are of both the standalone and part-of-a-through-hole-connector variety.

[jorge_garcia]

Hello mma08,

I hope you're doing well today. There isn't an easy solution for this right now. The best thing to do would be to copy the outlines of those specific holes to another layer and then export that layer on it's own. That would give you are gerber with only the specific holes of interest.

That would be the best solution at this moment.

Let me know if there's anything else I can do for you.

Also please accept as solution if this post resolves your issue.
Best Regards,

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the quick reply, Jorge. However, I can't select the holes because I don't have the original design file--a PCAD ASCII.brd file was exported from Altium and given to me to use. It seems as though Eagle auto-generated a library when opening .brd file, but the schematic contains no components.

I can display the pads associated with specific components by typing in 'show [component/net name]' However, I can't seem to move or control those items in any way. Do you know of a workaround? Also, are there particular layers I would choose to export?

Attached is an example highlighting of the top-left connector.

[jorge_garcia · Accepted solution]

Hi mma08,

Thanks for the additional information. From the board editor you can't select component pads individually and there's no current way to have the ULP only grab certain specific pads.

It might be easier to generate the Gcode and then remove the extra holes from the exported Gcode, I don't see an easy way to exclude them within EAGLE.

Let me know if there's anything else I can do for you.

Best Regards,

[vyvojhw]

Hi Jorge,

and how can I copy the outlines of specific holes to another layer? I'm solving the same thing as mma8, but I designed the board in Eagle (not in PCAD).. 🙂

Thank you,

Jan

[jorge_garcia]

Hi @vyvojhw,

I hope you're doing well. You can try this ULP. It copies outlines from layer 20 to layer 46, by adjusting the code a little bit you could get it to copy that information to any other layer.

Please let me know if there's anything else I can do for you.

Best Regards,

[Anonymous]

I would place an object at the axis of the hole and then let just that layer to be visible. alternatively, save a copy, select everything, deselect the 4 holes you want to keep, "Delete group" and you have JUST the 4 you wanted.

Workarounds, if something isn't working or can't be done in Eagle, you use workarounds.