How can i mirror a NC drill file

camtastic cnc

Hi,

I've made a NC drill file in protel, and now i have to drill the singelside pcb board with my cnc machine, but the NC drill layout i displayed from the Top layer, and i want to drilled it's from the bottom layer.

please help

best regards
PicBlaster

There is a mirror option in drill output, I think. The existing drill file can be mirrored with a gerber tool or a processed by a spreadsheet program.

PicBlaster said:

I've made a NC drill file in P*otel, and now i have to drill the singelside pcb board with my cnc machine, but the NC drill layout i displayed from the Top layer, and i want to drilled it's from the bottom layer.

Click to expand...

What version of Protel are you using, and do you have a CAM program like CAMTASTIC, or CAM350?

Hi. FvM and House_Cat

thanks for the reply


I'm use sommer08, and there is not a mirror for NC that i can find, and i don't have CAMTASTIC or CAM350

I have NCPlot but it's cant't mirror.

PicBlaster

If you have Altium Designer Summer 08, then you have CAMTASTIC CAM Editor integrated into it.

You can load your drill file into CAMTASTIC, set it to "NC Editor", and use the Edit>Mirror command. To see how to use it, hit "F1" when your cursor is over the menu command.

Once you have a properly mirrored plot, go to File>Export>Drill. Follow the prompts and save your mirrored file.

Hi House_Cat

Sorry, i've only worked with sommer08 for 1 day.

I will givet a go, and thanks for your help.

PicBlaster

On your CNC machine reverse direction on axis motor (X or Y, not both) and it's feedback if present. It should be fairly simple.

Other option would be to multiply all coordinates on X axis (or Y) with -1.
Generate file with leading and trailing zeros and with text search function replace sign as:

search for "x-" and replace with "x" and
search for "x0" and replace with "x-", just make sure that all results contain leading 0.

More ellegant solution is to insert command to mirror desired axis by inserting appropriate command line before coordinates. For this you need to read manual for your CNC for control codes supported.
Example: M02 X#Y# M80 (mirrors X)

As far as P*otel goes I have older ver. and it does not support mirroring NC drill file.