My guess is there is a fix in 0.9.6 that causes this problem (and thus it continues in 0.9.8.) Thus the issue occurs when 0.9.6 renders older sketches as well. The only current work around would be go back to 0.9.4 (which unfortunately doesn’t appear on the historic downloads page! so I hope you saved a copy, in which case I would fall back to 0.9.3b which is available on the older downloads page) until a fix can be made and hope you don’t run in to any of the path render bugs fixed by 0.9.6 and 0.9.8.
Peter, what I do not understand is that it seems that only I have this problem and no other user of Fritzing? Asking this because my design is a very straightforward one with nothing fancy tricks in the pcb layout which could suddenly show this overlap problem.
Joe.
Everyone using 0.9.6 or 0.9.8 has this problem. It looks like a change made in 0.9.6 changed how the pads are rendered and wasn’t noticed. Now if you render an older sketch in 0.9.6 or 0.9.8 this problem will appear when it didn’t in 0.9.4 and earlier.
Well, before I posted my problem I DID take a look in the “Bugs” category but could not
find something similar to my problem, at not a recent one. But of course I could have overlooked this.
Joe.
I think this is part of the Thick traces overlap holes issue from 2015. Part of this was I believe fixed in 0.9.6 and the fix appears to have caused this new problem. They look to be aware that it still has issues but I will add this to the comments in the issue in a bit.
O.K. But I have to ask the software people of PCLinuxOS if they are willing to re-install version 0.9.4 in our repository so I can let Aisler make my pcb’s, otherwise I have to wait for a fix.
Joe.
While I’m not familiar with PCLinuxOS specifically, usually the app-get type application loader can load older versions of software (if the older version is in the repository!) by just requesting it do so. So if 0.9.4 used to be there (or 0.9.3b which should also work) one of them should do the job.
I don’t think that this is an issue for the manufacturer. They will drill a hole and the copper on the hole will be removed. Contact your manufacturer if you want to be sure.
This is only a problem if you etch the pcb at home and use a manual drilling machine as the tip of the drill bit will not self-align at the center of the pad/via.
I had missed the Aisler in this. As far as I know Aisler uses the gerber output which is not affected by this bug. It generates a drill file that specifies the x/y position of the holes which are drilled before the board is etched (so plating through will work.) As @fai noted the bug only affects you if you are home etching (which I had assumed is what you were doing.)
IIRC, there was also an issue where thin wires would be disconnected from the copper ring (which would result in a broken circuit board).
A somewhat working solution was to start the wire closer to the hole. Since the copper will be removed when drilling the hole, this is usually not a problem.
A clean implementation would of course get this right, e.g. by cutting the hole from the wire end during PDF export. But right now it is a lower priority, since it seems more like a cosmetic issue.
Thanks Kjell for your explanation. You wrote:
“But right now it is a lower priority, since it seems more like a cosmetic issue.”
OK., but I think it is wise to wait for the comments of Felix (from Aisler) until I order a PCB from them?
Did sent him an email yesterday but did not(yet) receive a response from him.
I do. The code that produces the gerbers (likely what is used here) is different than the code that creates the etchable images. The gerber code does not have this error-.
So it is perfectly safe to let Aisler fabricate my pcb design and those pdf and svg etchable layouts just have some cosmetic issues as Kjell wrote.
I hope that Felix will respond soon on my email to him.
As promised here an update about this subject.
Although Felix did not took the effort to give a response to my email to him ( ) , I took the risk and ordered a new PCB which shows that overlap on the PDF drawing. Received the PCB’s this afternoon and nothing is wrong with it.
Again in impeccable fabrication!
), I decided to take the risk and ordered the manufacturing of my PCB.