Hi Within the eagle board widget is there a UI option that performs only

CAD & CAM Tool Chain ChiliPeppr
1

Hi
Within the eagle board widget is there a UI option that performs only the (dimension) milling and the drilling as a first step?

This seems a logical initial step as hole plating must be done prior to milling the traces.

Or is the current practice to render the whole board and edit the gcode for each operation?

Thanks
Justin

2

I think that would be a welcome addition for folks who do through hole plating. Would you be up for adding it? I think a checkbox in the ui and then simply copy the export gcode method but comment out all calls for the other parts.

3

I spent an hour looking at the import widget code last night. Whilst the code itself is straightforward (of course) the complexity of the object model (in engineering terms) and the absence of a class map makes it materially more difficult for someone who is not the maintainer/original author to make functional edits.

I think exposure to the underlying renderer and gcode generator would also be required before a meaningful contribution could be made on the few enhancements that I’d like to see (this one may be easier).

Whilst I am still interested in helping it would not be before end February and I cant help thinking that becoming proficient in this code base would not be very efficient for the community in terms of providing enhancements to cater for issues that everyone must come across on a daily basis and thus have workarounds for.

I wonder whether the current workarounds are, for example, to export gcode from eagle (or whatever) and then run that through chilipepper. If that is the way that everyone does things then it might be a better use of volunteer time to enhance that process and leave the people with true experience to work on the widget code.

In any event in the absence of a current UI option to do this I am interested to understand what people’s workflow is for dimension and slot milling, drilling, TH plating trace milling then lastly solder mask milling (if they don’t use an acetate + acetone workflow).

Thanks
Justin

4

You could just export the gcode and edit it in a text editor.

Also I would recommend watching the 3 videos on the homepage to understand the code structure.

5

Btw there is also the tool change dialog in the gcode widget that lets you jump to different sections of gcode and start your run from there.