Talk:PCB NC formats

Karloman2 (talk) 19:56, 5 November 2013 (UTC)This page rambles on with information not pertinent to the Excellon file format. trjonescp (talk) 15:54, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree. The tone of this article is based on personal opinion not fact. There is no data to back up certain statements being made. This NC drill format is still in wide use today. In addition, 274X DOES NOT include the drill data. It only contains imaging data. This article needs to be rewritten. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.166.37.209 (talk) 17:47, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
 * The comment about rambling is 5 years old, and refers to a long gone version of this article. The words in the Excellon article may need amendment, but removing then wholesale is hasty. They have been standing for many years and were viewed thousands of times, they cannot be that bad. There is a whole section on the Gerber format talk page about the relative merit of Excellon and Gerber for CAD to CAM data flow. Please read this first, and, if need be, amend the sentences in a more subtle way.Karloman2 (talk) 19:56, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

The tone of the "Indefinite NC files" section is accurate. I'm here after (or while) trying to rebuild an NC drill file produced by a leading EDA tool with the same (bad) characteristics as the article describes, down to astonishment and wonder at how a PCB manufacturer can efficiently and reliably import this data. It was returned to my client by their fab saying it could not be read (it's from a 3rd party). References or not, it's quite true. Adx (talk) 02:20, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

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External links modified
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20111206220540/http://www.eurocircuits.com/index.php/technology-guidelines/pcb-layout-data to http://www.eurocircuits.com/index.php/technology-guidelines/pcb-layout-data

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Should "Drill file" redirect here?
"Drill file" currently is a redlink. Would a good redirect be to this page? Adam850 (talk) 21:58, 22 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Not really. Excellon is just a format for drill files, there are others. E.g. Gerber, you might as well link to Gerber format. Drill file is a more general category than Excellon file. I think a better place to link it would be Numerical control; this is very general but at least includes drill files.Ludwig Boltzmann (talk) 04:50, 25 August 2018 (UTC)
 * I see "Drill file" now exists. Admittedly, it is a useful disambiguation page. However, I do not see the point to have this as an external link. It just links back to this page. It also contains a link to the Gerber format, which is useful, but then it is better to put that link directly on this page. I move to make this change. Objections, anyone?
 * Another point is that "drill file" is too generic, other industries than PCBs have them. I move to replace the title with "PCB drill file" or something similar.

Ludwig Boltzmann (talk) 10:55, 20 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Done Ludwig Boltzmann (talk) 10:59, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

About the title of this page
There is a problem with the title of this page. The article is not about Excellon files strictly speaking, but about NC files that circulate in the PCB industry. Most of these files contain only a small number of commands, and it is impossible to know whether they are Excellon or 349 files, or something generic NC. In fact, the term Excellon file and NC file are used interchangeable. I suggest to change the title to 'PCB NC format, or PCB NC and Excellon format', or something along these lines. Mayby maintaining an Excellon format page that links to the new title page. Objections?Ludwig Boltzmann (talk) 11:03, 20 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Done Ludwig Boltzmann (talk) 06:55, 8 April 2019 (UTC)