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Date: Mon, 28 Oct 2013 12:53:41 -0600
From: <jbump AT frii DOT com>
To: <geda-user AT delorie DOT com>
Subject: Re: [geda-user] pcb board outline for inside cutting
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On Sun, 27 Oct 2013 18:33:55 +0000, Peter Clifton <pcjc2 AT cam DOT ac DOT uk> wrote:
> On Sat, 2013-10-26 at 23:51 -0600, jbump AT frii DOT com wrote:
>> I need to mill out a hole inside a board, as well as the standard board
>> outline.  I can put my cutting-inside outline on an arbitrary layer
with
>> nothing else there and get a perfectly nice gerber, but it also
contains
>> all the drill holes.  Is there a good way to get pcb to produce two
>> separate outline files, that don't have anything else in them?  (The
>> obvious workaround, delete the unwanted bits in gerbv, is for some
reason
>> not working: I can't get it to select objects in order to delete them. 
I
>> can do that in circuitcam, but as I only have access to that at work
>> it's a
>> poor workaround.)
>> 
>> Thanks for any advice.
> 
> Usually the fabs are happy with this information all on the "outline"
> layer. No reason the outline can't have multiple contours.
> 
> Alternatively, PCB also understands the layer name "route" as special.
> (Not that I approve of magic special names, but "outline" and "route"
> ARE special as far as PCB is concerned).
> 
> Use one of the above layer names, and you should not get the pin/via
> pads and drills in the gerber output.

This is awesome.  Thank you.

It also later occurred to me that having two lines on the outline layer is
probably fine.  
The way I process gerbers for pcb production requires separate inside and 
outside files, because that's how the equipment knows to sequence the tool
changes, but after a bit of investigation it doesn't look like that's what
most pcb
fab houses use/require.  (In fact, they seem to be confused by the idea of
multiple
board routing files.)