CAMTASTIC_Cmd-DrillCircleDrillCircle_AD

Applied Parameters: CommandMode=NC

Summary

This command is used to place drill circles on the current document. Drill circles are placed when you wish to drill holes in the board that are larger in diameter than the largest drill tool.

Access

This command is accessed from the CAMtastic Editor by choosing the Place » Drill » Drill Circle (G84) command from the main menus.

Use

First, ensure that the layer you wish to place a drill circle on, is the active layer. This is achieved by double-clicking on the layer name in the layers list area of the CAMtastic panel.

After launching the command, the Select Mill/Drill Tool dialog will appear. Choose the tool you wish to use for drilling the circle from the list of available tools. After clicking OK, you will enter circle placement mode. Placement is made by performing the following sequence of actions:

1. Position the cursor at the required position and click to define the center point for the circle.
2. Move the cursor to define the radius of the circle. As you move the cursor, a line appears to visually define the radius. When the radius is the required size, click again to complete placement of the circle.
3. Continue placing further drill circles or right-click, or press Esc, to exit circle placement mode.

Tips

1. In order for this command to be available, make sure that you are in the NC Editor, rather than the CAM Editor. Editor selection is carried out from the View menu.
2. In order to add drill circles, tools must already have been defined, otherwise you will get a dialog alerting you to this fact and you will be directed to the Tool Table dialog, from where you can add tool definitions.
3. The fastest way to generate tools is to generate NC Drill files from the PCB design document. These are imported into the CAMtastic Editor, and the tool definitions added to the Tool Table dialog.
4. When a circle is drilled, the drilling machine actually drills overlapping holes around the circumference of the drill circle, in order to create the overall required hole in the board. You will notice when adding a drill circle that a small white circle is visible inside the circumference. This circle represents the size of the hole that will be drilled using the tool that you selected.