Advice on Drilling PCBs

Hi, I built a Repstrap and am running it with a gen6 controller. I managed to mill out a gen 7 circuit board. I used gEDA to export a Gerber file, then Visolate to export some Gcode. I'm just looking for advice on automating the drilling. I tried to use pcb2gcode to create Gcode from the drill file but the result is a string of G81 drill commands. I don't think the Gen6 firmware recognizes this command because nothing happens when i run the code. So I'm just wondering how others have tackled this issue. I think my options are to either write my own conversion program or modify the firmware.

My programming skills are a little dusty and I couldn't see how the firmware interprets the Gcode commands and am not sure how to add a G81 function. The other option is to use a text editor and manually edit the file.

Thanks in advance, Rob.

I think if I insert this code into the FiveD_GCode_Interpreter: process_g_code.pde line 414. My machine will drill. I will test it later and let anybody know if they are interested.

                       // drill cycle; -ve coordinate means zero the axis
			case 81:
                                //move to position fast
                                 sp = where_i_am;
                                 sp.x = fp.x;
                                 sp.y = fp.y;
                                 sp.f = FAST_XY_FEEDRATE;
                                 qMove(sp);

                                //move to z at requested feedrate
                                 Oldz = sp.z;
                                 sp.z = fp.z;
                                 sp.f = fp.f;
                                 qMove(sp);

                                //move retract z fast
                                 sp.z = Oldz;
                                 sp.f = FAST_XY_FEEDRATE;
                                 qMove(sp);
                                 return;                                  

gEDA/PCB exports quite usable G-code drill files directly. More recent versions even support an "advanced G-code" flag (bottom of the exporter dialog), which emits G81-free code when unchecked. Even more features are in the pipeline: [bugs.launchpad.net] , still the current state is quite usable already.

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Generation 7 Electronics	Teacup Firmware	RepRap DIY

Thanks for your reply. I now see the drill file gEDA/PCB exports looks useable. But I didn't notice an advanced G-code flag. That must not be included in the stable release. I'll try and compile it from git and then figure out how to apply thoughs patches. Thanks again.

While gEDA doesn't do "stable" releases (they just do a release from time to time) you're right. This "advanced" checkbox didn't make it into the last release. Next release

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Generation 7 Electronics	Teacup Firmware	RepRap DIY

hmm... I built pcb from git. I tried to apply the patches but all of them said 'patch does not apply'. I still don't see an advanced option but it might just be easyer for me to modify my firmware, the pcb exported gcode for drilling is good as you said.

Quote

I tried to apply the patches but all of them said 'patch does not apply'

Unfortunately, that's expected. All these patches were made about a year ago and last updated half a year ago. Since then, gEDA received substantial changes, like the move from centi-mil to nanometer as the internal standard measurement unit. If you want to try the patches, you have to check out commit f6c2d4907583614a10918a121f45670620f1946e, as described in comment #44 of this bug.

However, I just re-assured, "advanced-gcode" is already in the git repo. My current build is about 2 weeks old:

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Generation 7 Electronics	Teacup Firmware	RepRap DIY

Thank you so much. I figured it out. I was making a really stupid mistake. After days of building over and over again I realised I was running the same original install every time. In the end I was able to build the latest git and thanks to Traumflug and others geda/pcb exports perfectly usable gcode for a Reprap mill.