ElectronicsReleaseProcess

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Electronics Release Process

This is the process for making releases of the various electronics modules for the RepRap project. These releases include GERBER files, PDF of the circuits, and source files.

You need a Unix environment to make these releases (GNU/Linux / OSX)

Please read and be familiar with the Kicad Usage Guidelines

  1. Open the project file in Kicad.
  2. Open the .brd file that contains the PCB layout.
  3. Select File -> Plot

Make sure the following (and only the following) layers are selected:

  • Copper
  • Component
  • SilkS Cmp
  • Mask Copp
  • Mask Cmp
  1. Once you have selected the options, you will want to plot it as 'GERBER'.
  2. Then repeat the process and plot it as Postscript.
  3. Finally, don't forget to 'Create Drill File'.

Now you are ready to package the file into a release suitable for manufacture as well as release on SourceForge. To do that, first pull up a terminal. Change to the electronics directory in your subversion repository.

Run the following command:

  1. ./package_release package_name version

example:

  1. ./package_release universal-controller 1.3.0

Which would create a file called reprap-universal-controller-1.3.0.zip that contains GERBER, PDF, and KiCad source files for that board. You would then upload that file to Sourceforge to make a normal file release.