Utility to produce a single FPC file from multiple files representing different designs. Intended to work with FreePCB files
#Introduction This is a program to combine a number of fpc files representing printed circuit boards into a combined fpc file which can then be used for manufacturing.
Combining boards in this way can significanly reduce costs with some board houses who price a standard sized board say 100X100mm or 100X80mm.
This program allows you to combine several different boards in a single panel.
This program was developed using GNU g++, and depends on MinGW being on the path when run under windows.
It is run from the command line.
#Command line arguments
The command line arguments are pairs of tags and values as follows:
| Tag | Meaning |
|---|---|
| -b | Path of combined board specication file |
| -o | Path of output .fpc file |
| -c | Path of output CAM files to embed in .fpc file (default output folder with \CAM) |
| -m | Name of a net to be merged across files. |
| -w | Width of combined board in millimetres (default 100) |
| -h | Height of combined board in millimetres (default 100) |
| -nooutline | Specifies that individual board outlines are not included in the output |
The -b and -o tags are mandatory, others are optional
##examples
path=C:\MinGW\bin;%path%
c:\dev\paneliser\bin\release\paneliser.exe -b c:\DEV\SmallBoards\combinedboard_analog_2.txt -o c:\dev\SmallBoards\combined_analog3.fpc -c c:\dev\SmallBoards\CAM
#Combined board specification file The combined board specification file is a text file which defines the component boards that you wish to place on your combined board. Each line of the file defines the placement, naming and path of a component file. Fields in the specification file are separated by spaces.
The fields are as follows:
| Field Number | Contents |
|---|---|
| 1 | X coordinate in millimetres from the bottom left of the combined board of the origin of the current board. |
| 2 | Y coordinate in millimetres from the bottom left of the combined board of the origin of the current board. |
| 3 | Width of the current board in millimetres |
| 4 | Height of the current board in millimetres |
| 5 | Name of the board - this is used as a prefix for net names |
| 6 | Path of the fpc file defining the current board. |
0 0 48.5 73 SPISWITCH1 C:\DEV\SmallBoards\AUDIO_BUS\SPI_SWITCH_8.fpc
0 76 49 24 USBPSU C:\DEV\Smallboards\USBPSU\USBPSU_2.fpc
50.5 0 13.3 49 RJ45_ADAPTER C:\DEV\Smallboards\RJ45Adapter\RJ45Adapter_1.fpc
51.5 62 9.6 38 FET C:\DEV\Smallboards\FET\FET.fpc
65 0 35 100 LIGHT_POWER C:\DEV\SmallBoards\LIGHT_CONTROLLER\LightController_only_1.fpc