Wanted to order these blank boards

britlord

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Well guys this was a bust,. You see I ordered some of these blank 500+ boards. But got a email from PCBWay "There is no board outline inside, can you please kindly add it and re-upload file for checking", so I'm unable to to get these board. The guy who uploaded the Gerber files didn't add a board outline inside (Nathan Rochester from Australia)..

I have some dead boards here (corroded), and I would have used some of the parts to build these boards.. Oh well, as it would have been nice to have new 500+ (completed) boards..
 

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Why don't you just import the Gerber into Eagle or whatever and add it yourself?

Bryce.
 
Hi. I don't have the Gerber files, You see it was the engineer (Nathan Rochester) who uploaded them to PCBWay, and to order the boards you just click on it, anyway.. If I did have the files.. I don't have no how to do that..

I'm not a engineer.. Just a solderer... What a shame eh??? Oh, I've never used Eagle.. Though I do have it

EDIT: I was able to get them from PCBWay. Does anyone want to do it for me Please.. You'll get a free blank board. Free ship too.. You see all the parts are through-hole, so it ain't that hard to build (Not like SMD). You just need a none working board for some of the hard to find parts like all the rear connectors... The rest of the components are still available... Oh, and a good set of Amiga (working) custom chips..

Oh, The files have a extension .gbr .. Eagle can't open them, and I now know what the rep means. There's no board outline on the board (the edges that are not needed), or the screw holes too..
 

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- - - Updated - - -

I was able to add the boards outline. However when I save it and load the it back in the outline is gone GRRR, so I saved it as a pdf format..... Need help please.. The program I'm using is Gerbview, and PCBWay keeps emailing me "have I done it yet"

I ain't no bloody engineer.. Just a slave boy..
 

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Ping John Hertell (Chucky) a message - he's some experience with these things and may help. Possibly Hese might help too. I know how to add an outline, but can't guarantee that it would be correct as I've no A500's to check here
 
Ping John Hertell (Chucky) a message - he's some experience with these things and may help. Possibly Hese might help too. I know how to add an outline, but can't guarantee that it would be correct as I've no A500's to check here

OK thanks..
 
Guys I figured is out.. However the designer of the 500+ board has got the boards length wrong.. He has it at 108mm x 149.9mm(4.28 x 5.90 inches)... That's a 500+ mini board LOL and the correct length is 365mm x 253mm (as close as I can to measure it), so the price of the board goes up a lot higher (Darn I really wanted a blank board).. You see too many corroded boards (DEAD as a dodo).. But plenty of used parts (Not hard to get them out with my good old solder pot) and what designer is he.. No board outline. No screw holes..
 
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Guys I was wondering.. Does anyone have the Gerber's for this board, or who can I get in touch with to get them...

Thanks..
 

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Hi Mike,

I'm sorry I cant add any assistance with your request - like you I'm just a solderer, but I will be following your progress with interest.
I have 2 damaged boards Id love to replace. If you find success, Id be happy to contribute financially to any order you do
 
Hi britlord,
I'm back from holidays and took a look at the Gerbers last night. The good news is (as I suspected), the board has the correct dimensions, it's not a mini-A500. The Gerbers don't include information about the units used, so you needed to set these up yourself manually, which I wouldn't have expected you to know. The bad news is that whoever created the Gerbers chose to use Excellon format for the hole drills. Eagle doesn't handle Excellon very well (not at all in fact), so although I was able to get all the layers correctly imported, the board has no holes in it at the moment. I will try to import the excellon data with some other tools this week and try to get some working files for you. Worst case, I'll write a script to covert the XLN file myself.

Bryce.
 
Hi again,

I manually corrected the drill file, but I can tell you now, don't trust these gerber files! Not only was the drill file corrupt (possibly created with a beta Gerber creator), but I spotted further mistakes in the layout. The thru-pin holes are the wrong dimensions! = Absolute job-stopper, you'd get a PCB with holes too small to push the pins through! Some parts are on the wrong layers, there's copper missing on some pads and there are connections missing. It looks like this is a work-in-progress, not a finished board.

ToDo: Re-pour ground plane (all components connected to the plane are no longer connected!). Resize all thru-pin holes (to at least 0.8mm). Add border.

Bryce.

Here's the BRD file for you anyway, for your viewing pleasure (Eagle Board File) and in case you want to complete the ToDo list.

View attachment A500.zip
 
Guys I was wondering.. Does anyone have the Gerber's for this board, or who can I get in touch with to get them...

Thanks..
According to the thread about this board over on a1k.org, the Gerbers aren't and will never be released. The guy who did the reverse engineering wants to make sure you get a working, high quality board. Thus, you can only buy this board at the a1k.org forum.

I can perfectly understand this notion. Not long ago I bought a ReAmiga R1200 PCB on eBay. It took me a good three months to acquire all the parts and solder the board just to realize that I couldn't get it to boot from a real floppy drive (Gotek worked). After three more months of troubleshooting, doing hundreds of measurements, replacing almost all ICs and lots of the passives, I gave up, bought a second PCB from a renowned seller and got everything working in the first go.

The price of both PCBs was about the same, but what a difference in quality: The first one only had HASL, the second has ENIG plating. The soldermask of the first one was easily scrubbed away when removing flux with IPA and brush. The mask of the second one just stays where it's supposed to be. And finally, the pads of the first one were so weak that I managed to rip some of them off while carefully desoldering the chips...
 
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