Mirroring for printing Bottom Paste

[cborn]

I had a bit of a struggle getting the machine to print the bottom paste layer for me, possibly I just didn't find the documentation on how to so it.

I recently had to make a small mod to some lithium battery boards I'd made back in 2013. The original design was in Eagle, then I'd panelized them using DesignSpark, as I was playing around with it then and it made it very easy to panelize and go beyond the size limitations of my Eagle version.

I had the blank PCBs, 4 to a panel, and the original Gerbers I had sent off for fabrication. They have the through hole components (battery holder, connectors) on the component (top) side, and the SMT components (battery charger IC and passives) on the bottom.

By default DesignSpark names all the Gerbers as .GBR, and the one I wanted was named "USB_Batt_smt_panels- Bottom Copper (Paste).gbr"
The Voltera software read it and the drills in ok, but displayed it as the top layer, so I couldn't line it up to print the paste. I tried renaming it to have a .GPB suffix but that didn't help, it still treated it as top paste. I was really hoping to find a simple way to manually mirror it, or to tell the software that this was the bottom paste layer?

In the end I had to go back to DesignSpark, install the version upgrades they had done over the intervening 4 years, read in the original panelized project, and output the Gerber using the "mirror" option, before I could use the V-One to apply the paste.

After which I belatedly realized that I wouldn't be able to use the guillotine to cut the boards apart once they had the components attached, so I would have to cut them first and then add the paste, which meant I wasn't really saving to much time, having to align each small board individually. And I had to go back to the pre-panelized version and export mirrored bottom paste Gerbers for it!

Anyway, question is, do we have, or can we have, and easy way to tell the software this is a bottom paste so please flip the board?

[michael]

I can imagine what the Voltera folks answer to this request 'please add a mirror UI option' will be, probably that the Voltera software doesn't provide computer aided design features and rather focuses on printing only.

It's still worth considering, since the mirror problem is extremely common and probably easy to implement. I'm not sure where I would put my vote, since I understand the loading of CAD options as a disadvantage for maintenance and support reasons.

[mewertow]

hey @cborn, thanks for letting us know. That's actually not something we've considered up until now, which seems like a bit of a glaring omission. We currently do board mirroring for .gbl files, so I'd imagine we could do something similar for .gbp files. I'll tag @troy from our software team so he's aware.

@michael is right that we tend to err on the side of following the gerbers explicitly, since we find that making assumptions about a design choice can go awry. However, this option seems like it would be pretty useful. Hopefully we can schedule it in to an upcoming update.

• Matt

[troy]

Thanks for reporting @cborn and thank's for the heads-up @mewertow. Older versions of the app did not support mirroring of the paste layer. I noticed this inconsistency a while back while working near the gerber loading code. Not sure how long ago this was fixed*. The trick is the file extension needs to be .GBP, instead of GTL (it can be upper or lowercase). @cborn looks like you used G-P-B.

GBR files are treated as tops, i think gbr means GerBeR not Gerber-Bottom-coppeR. If someone has a quality reference that says otherwise, please share.

*so this has been addressed in the strictest sense, but that's not how we role. I agree that it would be nice if there was a way to mirror any design. I've created a task to look at this.

[troy]

Forgot to mention...
@michael is correct: we don't want to end up with a lot of design tool functionality in our app.

[jazozaya]

Hi all,

Not much to add to what @mewertow and @troy mentioned, but here’s the most up to date info on what extensions the software is expecting - (from our support docs)

[cborn]

Just back from our Queen's Birthday long weekend, first thing I did was search the support documents and eventually found the section on naming the bottom paste Gerber as .GBP to have it mirrored. Only then I checked for unread forum messages, and found Jesus' pointer to it
@troy is probably right saying I renamed mine from .GBR to .GPB rather than .GBP, I was unsure as to what may work at that stage.

I would like to compliment @Troy and all behind the software UI, having the guided workflow and video clips is really great for something like this where you are not doing it on a daily basis.

Some years ago I wrote (hacked up) a quick program so assist me with routing, drilling and milling PCBs on my Modela MDX20. (You can guess how long ago from the fact I wrote it in VB6 )
It displayed the board layout, automated panelization, handled placement offsets, multi-pass cut-in depths for milling passes, drill height alignment, etc, and at the time I thought it was pretty easy and intuitive to work with.
However coming back to it after some time I found it was too easy to overlook some procedural steps and end up breaking a drill bit, which made me appreciate your guided approach all the more.

I decided to try and simplify my workflow by making my drill process similar to the V-One system, and drilled a base plate to I could use the clamps off the V-One on the MDX20, and added workpiece rotation correction to my x-y offset so the alignment procedure is now the same as on the V-One, so I'm getting some convergence!

@troy - A couple of things I noticied in the V-One software.
1. When I was playing around with the Gerber paste files, I found that often if I selected a file name, then removed it (with the X) and tried to change it to another (say with a renamed suffix) the software would lock up, and I had to close it and start it up again.
2. When I look at the print settings (I haven't changed anything yet, but wanted to see the "Kick" parameter for the different paste I was trying) when i hover over a lot of the variables I get a message "Please enter a valid value. The nearest two valid values are...", with the current default value appearing to be invalid.
For example for the "Soft start ratio" the default is 0.05, but it tells me the nearest valid values are 0 and 0.1.
The up/down buttons on the entry will likewise jump between 0 and 0.1, indicating the that default 0.05 is invalid. This applies to quite a few of the values.

[troy]

Hey @cborn,
The fact that updated your software to match is a huge compliment, thank you !

As an fyi, @jazozaya updated the docs to add *.GBP as a result of this thread. So you if you had searched before your trip you would not have found the answer.

I checked out the 2 bugs you found:
1) I was not able to reproduce this one. you can reproduce it then submit a support package I can check out the logs and see what's up. Please include your gerber if you can.
2) I saw this. I didn't know our app had these "Please enter..." tooltips. They are actually built in to the html5 input control for numbers. I think what's happened is that we don't set the step size for those controls, and whatever the control is deducing based on the min, max and default is resulting in this message. I'll be fixing this soon since i'll be in that area of the code in the next day or so.

Thanks for the bugs!

[cborn]

@troy,

I've submitted the package. On further testing the interface seems to lock up for 1 minute, then the file request dialog pops up. Doesn't always happen, and sometimes file request pops up immediately. Seems pretty consistent fist thing after staring the program though.

Oh dear, this just appeared:

Uh Oh! Something went wrong!

Unable to send support package
Please contact support@voltera.io to resolve the problem.

So it looks like my package wasn't submitted, and all the extensive problem description info I typed in has been lost

So, I start the program, select SOLDER, then a Gerber and drill file. So far so good.
Then I clear the gerber, and click to select another. And the interface locks up.
For 1 minute.
And then, the file request dialog pops up, and things proceed as normal.

Ok, just pasted the above into the problem description and tried sending the package (with gerbers) again.
And again it spun thinking for a bit, and popped up the Uh Oh! message.

FYI the gerbers are on a share, name from the rpc.log is pretty long:

{"antiString":0.1,"dispenseHeight":0.14,"feedrate":600,"kick":0.3,"passSpacing":0.18,"probePitch":5,"softStart":0.05,"softStop":0.05,"tracePadPenetration":0.15,"trimLength":45,"level":"info","message":"⎢ Loading gerber files... \\SONIC\usr\src\Alcoa\Projects\Potrod\AnodeMeter\Vn2\DesignSpark\Test\USB_Batt_smt - Bottom Paste Mask.gbr,\\SONIC\usr\src\Alcoa\Projects\Potrod\AnodeMeter\Vn2\DesignSpark\Test\USB_Batt_smt - Drill Data - Through Hole.drl [object Object] [ '\\\\\\\\SONIC\\\\usr\\\\src\\\\Alcoa\\\\Projects\\\\Potrod\\\\AnodeMeter\\\\Vn2\\\\DesignSpark\\\\Test\\\\USB_Batt_smt - Bottom Paste Mask.gbr',\n '\\\\\\\\SONIC\\\\usr\\\\src\\\\Alcoa\\\\Projects\\\\Potrod\\\\AnodeMeter\\\\Vn2\\\\DesignSpark\\\\Test\\\\USB_Batt_smt - Drill Data - Through Hole.drl' ]","timestamp":"2017-06-14T02:18:18.099Z"}

I could send the app.log, printer.log, rpc.log and gerbers via email if that helps?

David

[troy]

yes, please email them. I should see an error in there for the support package failure too.

Thanks

[troy]

Got the logs and took a look. Didn't see an error in file open, the logs match your description: it takes ~1min between clicking and returning from the openDialog. I did some searching and this may be an issue with the openDialog and mounted drives. It's a non-trivial request, but if you can try copying your files to the machine, unmounting suspect drives, then see if the performance problem goes way.

As for the email permissions issue we use smtp.gmail.com. If you can create an exception for this machine / our app, that would be great. The destination email is support@voltera.io.

[cborn]

I copied the files to a local drive, and the problem goes away, file open dialog comes up immediately every time.
I use the remote for most of my development files, accessing them with Eagle, Rhino, Gerbv, Cura, Slic3r, Pronterface...etc, and I don't see the delay with any of the other software.

On the smtp.gmail.com, looks I've been getting email responses to say you received my test packages, however the UI pops up "Uh oh, something went wrong!" every time. Are you getting complete packages, or just partials? Or perhaps the GUI is wedged with an error flag?

I tried setting up a custom rule for smtp.gmail.com on the router, but they keep changing their IP all the time!
I monitored with WireShark and it looks like there are several ports in use too. It may be easier for me to override their DNS name locally and vector your requests to our internal SMTP server. Or for you to make the server name configurable!

[troy]

I don't see the delay with any of the other software.

thanks for that^ detail. i forgot to ask earlier.

there are a few outbound network activities from the app:
- auto updates (checking and downloading)
- support emails
- analytics (for UI flow analysis and various usage metrics)
- logging (for accelerated/proactive bug resolution)

afaik this is the first time that network/firewall config has come up (which is surprising). Let me check with @mewertow on that.

[cborn]

Following up on the smtp, our firewall blocks outgoing connections to ports 25 and 587 from any host except our mail server. I bypassed DNS to send your connections to smtp.gmail.com to our mail server instead, and monitored with Wireshark. Our server rejected the connections, which were to port 465.
Note that port 465 was at one time proposed for use for SSL encrypted smtp, but it was never officially ratified and the port was reassigned to another service, check the RFCs.
SSL encrypted smtp is now handled over standard smtp port 25, with a STARTTLS message.
Gmail uses TLS on port 587, and may still accept SSL on 465 for legacy reasons.

SSL vs TLS vs STARTTLS

[michael]

I had problems sending email to Voltera addresses a few months ago, but didn't have time to find the reason. I suspect there was a missing PTR record or other silly configuration problem which seems to have since been resolved.

[cborn]

So having spent WAY too long trying to configure our internal mail server to proxy for smtp.gmail.com (works ok using self-generated certificates, but the Voltera code doesn't like it, I assumed as it wanted external certification), then playing around with Letsencrypt (but requires an external facing web server to renew,and our web server and mail server are different machines), I eventually got it working by adding a hosts file entry for smtp.gmail.com to the machine running the Voltera code, thus pinning it down to one IP (I used 108.177.97.108), and adding an outgoing firewall exception for that IP and port 465.
So please ignore any/all mail-test support packages that got through to you!

[troy]

Thanks for digging so deep into this. Matt says he got about 7 packages.

Huge thanks for the link. I'll read that info and likely update the port we use. I'll also look into why the module we use, email.js, defaults to 465. If you have other recommendations let me know.

On the openFile dialog front, i have not found much info. We're using electron, which uses chromium, which is using the OS's openFile dialog. Only actions i can think of are to:

• update the version of electron we are using -- happy to do this
• confirm OS version on your machine, and that updates are installed -- even though you've said we're the only app with this problem, it's easy to check, if only to rule this out.
• reproduce here and experiment with the values we configure on the dialog -- maybe setting file filters results in some costly work for the dialog?

Updating electron won't make it into the next release but i can slot it in to the one after.

Allocating time to experiment will take longer.

If you have other ideas/suggests let me know

[cborn]

Hi Troy,
Sorry for the delayed response, I've been away for a bit.
Anyway, back now and thought I better take a look at Electron on Chromium, never used it before so took a bit of catching up! I tried building Electron based on their instructions for both Linux and Windows, builds on both platforms currently do a lot of work but eventually fail, so their instructions may not be up to date?
I then cloned and built their "Electron-Quick-Start" tutorial, spent a bit more time fiddling around getting the build process to work inside Visual Studio Code, and then added a file requester dialog.
This intermittently displays the same long delays when opening on the remote drive, so it isn't just you! No pattern I can discern so far, mostly it opens immediately, sometimes delays for a minute before the dialog appears. I'm not doing any fancy filtering, initially I allowed all files, currently filtering on .gcode extension and displaying in a text box, but that didn't seem to make a difference.
My versions shows as:

We are using Node.js 7.4.0, Chromium 56.0.2924.87, and Electron 1.6.11.

So looks like it is an upstream problem not of your making!

[troy]

Way to dig in @cborn!
Good to know it's not something i did. trying to figure if there is anything i can do*. Did some more searching and found some suggestions pointing to updating service packs (aka the unplug-it-for-30s of desktop software support) and to a system clean-up utility (CCleaner was specifically mentioned).

*Trying to think if there's a feature i can add that will workaround this and improve the load step in general. I have not come up with anything that would eliminate the need for openDialog (you need to do it at least once)...unless I get extreme (unlikely in short term). If you have ideas, fire away.

[Pescatore]

Hello @jazozaya,
I just bought the V-one and getting to know how to use it.
This requirement of extension name is very enlightening and frustrating at the same time.
I could not figure out how to paste the back side because I thought I had to mirror the gerber myself.
After hours of failing at loading a mirror image and not getting a quick answer from the in-app support, I went to the forums.

I currently cannot view the docs because the docs link comes back as not a secure connection.
I would recommend a link to the docs on the voltera site as well.

I digress here, but another trick that really frustrated me is how to run the V-one software without a printer (triple click) Why isn’t that a plain button on the startup screen?!?!
Just another example of a common use of the printer that is hidden away.

EDIT: @troy
Mirroring for printing Bottom Paste