Digitizer help

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I once long ago in a place far away had a digitizer tha... - Jul 21, 2000 by Travis Slaughter

A former associate was quite pleased with product called Sc... - Jul 25, 2000 by Mark Charlton

Travis: Several points: * When we converted artwork (back... - Jul 25, 2000 by davef

Thank you, both for the replies gives me some good ideas. B... - Jul 26, 2000 by Travis Slaughter

Travis, I miss the point ... I can hit the spot on the boar... - Jul 27, 2000 by davef

Travis Slaughter

#3489

Digitizer help | 21 July, 2000

I once long ago in a place far away had a digitizer that through a series of arms and encoders could be used to plot placement points on a PCB for which there was no CAD or Gerber data. I now find myself in need of this again but the digitizers I have found use electromagnetics instead of the old arm encoder stuff and I don�t see them shooting through 12 layers of copper with any accuracy. I do have one possible with a ultrasonic model but would love to have one that I know works. Anyone know where to get one of the old ones or have any experience with the GTCO ultrasonic ones?

Thanks, Travis

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Mark Charlton

#3490

Re: Digitizer help | 25 July, 2000

A former associate was quite pleased with product called ScanCad. If you e-mail me here at SMTnet, I'll get you in touch with him. I believe you could scan a bare pcb fab and extract centroids.

Mark

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davef

#3491

Re: Digitizer help | 25 July, 2000

Travis: Several points: * When we converted artwork (back in the Jurassic Period), we used a huge digitizer pad and the original artwork. * While your Rube Goldbergian (http://www.rubegoldberg.com/gallery.htm ) arm encoder thing sounds fascinating, aren�t you concerned about tolerance build-up? Wouldn�t you be just as well off overlaying a piece of graph paper and taking measurements from that? * I agree that it would be one very stout electromagnetic digitizer that would operate though your board. * Our current practice is to digitally scan original artwork of boards without electronic artwork, as a matter of course. Sources for digitizing boards are in the SMTnet archives. * Finally, as Mark says, you could but a scanner

Good luck

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Travis Slaughter

#3492

Re: Digitizer help | 26 July, 2000

Thank you, both for the replies gives me some good ideas. By the way Dave I could shoot that old arm system within 0.003� plenty good enough for 1206 and 50mil pitch.

Thanks again, Travis

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davef

#3493

Re: Digitizer help | 27 July, 2000

Travis, I miss the point ... I can hit the spot on the board from 20 feet with those components!!!

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