Several boards on one sheet

Two or more designs on one piece of copper, cut in one run: one trace file, one drill file, one cut-out. The drawings are live: add boards, drag them, and watch the checks.

Novice or Pro?

This page is for Pro: Add another board… is not in Novice.

Try itThree boards fit side by side on the 150 × 100 mm sheet. Add a fourth and it runs off the copper; butt them together and all four fit, because touching boards share one cut instead of 4 mm of waste.

Add and place

  1. Add File › Add another board to the sheet… (Ctrl+Shift+O), or Set up the job › The board › Add another board…. It lands to the right of what is there, 4 mm clear, its front edge level with the others. The same folder twice makes two of the board: buck, buck 2.
  2. Pick Click a board on the bed, or in the list under Set up the job › The board. The placement fields, the rotation and the arrow keys act on the picked board; the others stay put.
  3. Move Drag it, or nudge it with the arrow keys: 0.1 mm a press, Shift for 1 mm, Ctrl for 0.01 mm.
  4. Arrange Set up the job › Where it sits on the bed: Lay them side by side lines them up left to right, 4 mm apart; Butt them together lines them up touching. The first board stays where it is. Centre it on the copper then moves the whole panel onto the middle of the sheet (see where the copper is).
  5. Take off Set up the job › The board › Take this board off removes the picked one.

How close may they sit?

Each cut-out runs one cutter width, 0.8 mm, just outside its board. How close two boards sit decides what happens between them, and the checks say so:

The seam, to scaleCloser than the cutter, one channel runs down the middle of the gap and each board gives up the difference. A little further apart, a thin strip is left between two channels, and that strip can break loose.
GapWhat the cut-out doesThe check
OverlappingNothing: the boards are one shapeTwo boards overlap: the export refuses
0 to 0.8 mmOne channel, centred in the gap; each board loses (0.8 − gap) / 2, so 0.4 mm when buttedTwo boards share one cut, a warning once each loses 0.2 mm or more
0.8 to 2.6 mmTwo channels, with a strip of stock (gap − 1.6 mm) between themNearly touching: the strip can break loose and jam the cutter
2.6 mm or moreTwo channels, waste that stays putThe boards keep clear of each other

The sheet's edge

Once the copper's size and corner are set under Set up the job › The copper, a board edge within 0.5 mm of the sheet's edge is the sheet's edge, and the cut-out leaves that side out: a cutter running along it would be mostly in the air. Hanging that little off the copper is a warning (the board comes out short by that much); any more is a failure.

The 0.5 mm ruleSlide the board towards the sheet's edge and past it. Without the sheet set, the app only knows the bed and cuts the whole ring.

The files, and the rest of the job

  • File names join every board's name: buck+buck_2_traces.nc, unless you type a Job name under Set up the job › The board.
  • VPanel still lists them alphabetically, so the cut-out lands first. Move it to the bottom, drill first if you can: see Cut in VPanel.
  • The dry run traces every outline. Isolation sees all the copper at once, so two boards placed close enough to short each other show up in the checks like any other short.
  • The probe grid, the screws and the checks see the whole sheet's worth. Setups save every board with its own placement and rotation.
Two boards side by side on one sheet, each named above its outline
In the app: two boards side by side, each named. The picked one is outlined; the setup page lists them and moves the picked one.
Single-sided only

A double-sided job is one board registered to its holes. Add boards to a single-sided job.

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