"Warning: More than one signal layer active!" when running a CAM job on  *.brd file

There is a series of YouTube tutorials containing 12 lessons for Eagle.  Search for Eagle Tutorial (RPC Electronics.

If I remember right, lesson 12 deals with making Gerber files.

In the Eagle board window, click "Cam Processor"

In the new window that pops up, click "File", "Open", "Job"

Find the CAM file that you want to run and click "Open"..  The file name must have the extension, "cam".

Click "Process Job"

One board house requires the following:

1. Gerber Files Required:

The following files would be needed for the 2-layers PCB production:

Note: The Gerber file must be RS-274x format and board outline must be included at least in one layer;

Compress the 8 files into one zip file and upload to your board house.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDE1858BD83D19C70

Gary Gofstein wrote on Mon, 08 February 2010 19:32

Another nice alternative for the hobbyist/noob is to just use a board

house that will accept the eagle .brd file and skip the gerber process

 

entirely.

Some board houses do accept Eagle BRD files, but this is not a good

solution.  It will severly limit the board houses available to you, and it

leaves questions open as to what layers you really want (and will pay for),

what exactly will be shown on the silkscreen, etc.

The CAM processor in Eagle is not that hard to use.  Take the extra hour to

read the documentation and follow the process once.  Then you'll have a

better understanding what is going on and a whole world of possible places

to get your boards done.

--

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Time to stop relying on sparkfun and learn how to make CAM jobs. A CAM

job generates a series of files that are printed onto the board through

complicated processes to form the the traces, holes, vias, soldermasks

and silkscreen legends.

Each "Gerber" must represent one and only one process. So the top and

bottom trace layers are separate processes because they are printed on

separate sides of the board. My guess is that the CAM job you used

included both Top and Bottom layers in one output file, leading to the

warning. Normally, the component side gerber contains the top copper

layer, pads layer and via layer. That is, anyplace you want to have

copper on top of the board. The solder side gerber is the same except

traces come from the bottom eagle layer. It's up to you what to put into

the silk layers, usually tplace and tnames but you may want others, make

sure all fonts in this layer are vector font or you will get a nasty

surprise. The stop gerbers for soldermask are made the tStop and bStop

layers usually.

Most board houses do not want the bottom layer mirrored.

By looking at the gerber files individually on a gerber viewer, you can

often spot problems such as mirrored layers, offsets, inversions,

scaling errors, wrong size holes, offset holes or missing layers. You

can also output the gerbers to a printer and hold them up to the light

to make sure they are what you need. What you see is what you get, if it

looks wrong, it probably is wrong. There are ULP's to assist with this

process.

Another nice alternative for the hobbyist/noob is to just use a board

house that will accept the eagle .brd file and skip the gerber process

entirely. That's how I do it, had great luck so far with Beta Layout.

Thanks, Sparkfun tutorials didn't say.  Only mentioned the

sfe-gerb274x.cam file.

 

Sorry for such noob questions, but my first board and I wanted to make

sure everything is good.

 

Thanks.

--

Browser access to CadSoft Support Forums at http://www.eaglecentral.ca

I use a modified version of the Sparkfun cam file. I think it generates the

drill file for you that why they don't mention the extra step in the

tutorial Also, check your gerbers carefully with a gerber viewer as I seem

to remember they don't output the component names to the top silk screen

gerber.(I know something was missing??)

Quote:

Thanks, Sparkfun tutorials didn't say.

I don't see what Sparkfun has to do with this.  You should be following the

Eagle documentation.

Quote:

So, per this posting, I get ""Warning: More than one signal layer

active!" when running a CAM job on *.brd file, that's because I have

traces routed both the bottom and top layers.  Is that correct?

Probably not.  You need to make a separate Gerber file for each layer of

the board.  You can use my Generic2L CAM job, which is included in the

Eagle Tools release I mentioned in your other thread.  That has the Gerber

file outputs defined you would likely ever want.  Just temporarily delete

the ones you don't need, run the job, then don't save it so all the layers

are there to select from next time too.  Take a look at my EAGLE_PCB BAT

file in the COM directory.  The comments contain a checklist of things to

do to go from finished board design to board fab files for a board house.

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"Olin Lathrop" <eagle@embedinc.com> wrote in message

news:hkmk3r$t4c$1@cheetah.cadsoft.de...

Quote:

Actually one more question.  I ran the CAM job, I don't see the *.drd

file, the drill file, generated.  I see the *.dri file generated.  Is

that the drill file?

 

If you had simply looked at it you would have seen it is the drill

information file, not the drill data file.  You first run DRILLCFG, then

the Excellon CAM processor job to create the actual drill data.

 

Thanks, Sparkfun tutorials didn't say.  Only mentioned the sfe-gerb274x.cam

file.

Sorry for such noob questions, but my first board and I wanted to make sure

everything is good.

So, per this posting, I get ""Warning: More than one signal layer active!"

when running a CAM job on  *.brd file, that's because I have traces routed

both the bottom and top layers.  Is that correct?

(Also I was able to gerbv gerber file viewer and confirm all the details.)

Thanks.

--

Browser access to CadSoft Support Forums at http://www.eaglecentral.ca

Quote:

Actually one more question.  I ran the CAM job, I don't see the *.drd

file, the drill file, generated.  I see the *.dri file generated.  Is

that the drill file?

If you had simply looked at it you would have seen it is the drill

information file, not the drill data file.  You first run DRILLCFG, then

the Excellon CAM processor job to create the actual drill data.

--

Browser access to CadSoft Support Forums at http://www.eaglecentral.ca

Actually one more question.  I ran the CAM job, I don't see the *.drd file,

the drill file, generated.  I see the *.dri file generated.  Is that the

drill file?

Thanks

"AL" <unbonnevie@yahoo.com> wrote in message

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