Re: creating stencils

[William Estrada <MrUmunhum popdial com>]

Michael,

Thanks for the response, very detailed. I will be playing with this.


Michael Ross wrote:
> Dear William,
>
> My first choice to make accurate masks is a CAD program.  At least 
> with CAD it is easy to have precision in the relative lengths of the 
> various items in the drawing.
>
> The printer must also be calibrated properly - that means you need a 
> printer that is high end enough to have the ability to be calibrated.  
> Many good office laser printers have the capability to be calibrated, 
> but how that is done may not be obvious - it may be something the 
> service personnel can do, but you may have no documentation to go by.
>
> The alternative is to actually measure shapes on paper to see how they 
> software, printer driver and printer are all working together.  Then 
> you can scale your virtual mask to produce reasonable PCB masks.
>
> Mask and stencil are in some ways synonymous. 
>
> I think you may find printing images of an exact size with Dia to be 
> less than easy.  Not to discourage you, but to warn you incase you are 
> in a time sensitive mode.  Here are a couple of helpful hints. 
> To show a grid go to File/Preferences, select the tab Grid Lines, and 
> set the grid line color to something that contrasts wit the background 
> color.
> In the tab Diagram Defaults set the paprt size to what you want to use 
> (it comes set to A4 paper).  Here you can also set the background 
> color and whether the sheets are portrai of landscape in layout.
> In the tab View Defaults set the page break line color to contrast 
> with the grid and the background.  Set the page breaks to be visible.
>
> Each drawing (create a new one to see) can have settings for paper 
> size and layout, go to File/Page Setup to change this, and notice the 
> margin settings.  Also notice the Scale setting.  Set Scale to 100 for 
> a US letter alndscape and the page will be close to filling you 
> monitor screen. Higher numbers show more pages (I am not clear what a 
> scal of 1 or 100 means but you can use this cahnge the visibility of 
> the pages of the diagram.
>
> THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT: Units in Dia are centimeters. The page break 
> lines you see in the workspace are NOT the edges of the paper you have 
> chosen.  These are the perimiter of the margins inside the paper 
> size.  For example if you had the following margins set for a US 
> letter size paper (8.5inches x 11.0inches):
>
> top = 0.25inch = 0.635 cm
> bottom = 0.25inch = 0.635 cm
> left = 0.5inch = 1.27cm
> right = 0.5inch = 1.27cm
>
> This would mean the area between the page break lines is 8.0 inches x 
> 10 inches.
>
> You can turn on the grid at Diagram/Properties. Uncheck the Dynamic 
> Grid, and set x and y Spacing to 2.54 and leave the Visible Spacing to 
> be 1 and 1.   Diagram/Colors changes the grid lines and page break 
> colors for this particular Diagram.
>
> At the bottom of the Diagramming window are two icons to toggle grid 
> snapping and object snapping.
>
> I think a nice quick check of you printer would be to set the all as I 
> have described above, set the magrgins, set to grid snapping ON.
> Draw a rectangle around the extents of a single sheet, snapping it to 
> the exact corners of the page
> and maybe draw another rectangle one grid inward to make a box that is 
> 7 inches by 9 inches. Set the rectangle properties to Draw Background 
> NO so you can see the grid behind them.
>
> Print this out NOT "Fit to page," but use instead Actual Size (or 
> whaterver you printer driver calls these things).
>
> You should get two rectangles that are exactly 8 inches by 10 inches, 
> and 6 inches by 8 inches.  That latter offset exaclty one inch inward 
> from the outer.
>
> Measure those two reactangles as printed and see if you need to make 
> changes.
>
> Your best bet to make exactly sized shapes is to have the grid set to 
> some minimum desired resolution and only draw to grid snaps (coiunting 
> then in between to get the size right).  This is not at all practical, 
> but you have no other choice that I know of.  Getting a CAD program is 
> the better solution.  Dia was not designed to make precisely 
> dimensioned shapes on paper.
>
> Good luck,
>
> Mike
>
>
> On Fri, Mar 13, 2009 at 5:52 PM, William Estrada 
> <MrUmunhum popdial com <mailto:MrUmunhum popdial com>> wrote:
>
>     Hi group,
>
>      I need to create a paper template to use for a mask on a PC
>     board. I plan to
>     use DIA and I need to know how to create one. I think they are
>     called stencils(?).
>     I would like to get a mask with the holes at .1 inch spacing and
>     then create
>     the sheets representing IC to overlay the the PC board image.
>
>     Any pointer??
>
>     -- 
>     William Estrada
>     MrUmunhum popdial com <mailto:MrUmunhum popdial com>
>     Mt-Umunhum-Wireless.net ( http://64.124.13.3 )
>     Ymessenger: MrUmunhum
>
>
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>
>
>
> --
>                    Michael E. Ross
> ArcAngle Design & Analysis | MX Automation
> =================================
> Bachelor of Science Mechanical Engineering
>  Machine & Product Design - SolidWorks
>    Data Acquisition & Control - LabVIEW
>      Finite Element Analysis - Cosmos
>
>
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> ==============================


--
William Estrada
MrUmunhum popdial com
Mt-Umunhum-Wireless.net ( http://64.124.13.3 )
Ymessenger: MrUmunhum