Importing Gerber/DXF from PCB into SolidWorks
As the design of PCB's becomes more complex, the need to do 3D modeling of a printed circuit board also becomes more important. Many PCB design tools have an interface to SolidWorks via the IDF file format -- however this approach is useful mostly for components, connectors, board outline and mounting holes. If you need conductor and plated through hole data in 3D, IDF is not a good solution. And, of course, if your PCB layout tool does not support IDF you are out of luck.
AutoCAD DXF?
I can slide back and forth between the two programs without crashes, file conversions, or data transfers. I throw the components on the board in SOLIDWORKS PCB, take the design into SOLIDWORKS to check clearances, move back to SOLIDWORKS PCB to make modifications, and then go back to SOLIDWORKS to automatically generate unified BOM bill of. Watch this video to learn how to set up clearance rules to avoid interferences between existing components on your board, and also how to import an existing 3D STEP model into SOLIDWORKS PCB. SOLIDWORKS PCB 2017. Seamlessly synchronize electronic and mechanical design on demand with SOLIDWORKS PCB that combines the electronics design expertise of. As the design of PCB's becomes more complex, the need to do 3D modeling of a printed circuit board also becomes more important. Many PCB design tools have an interface to SolidWorks via the IDF file format - however this approach is useful mostly for components, connectors.
An initial thought is to use SolidWorks ability to import AutoCAD's DWG/DXF format as a way to move the board data into SolidWorks. For example, it is pretty easy to convert most Gerber files into DXF. However those that have tried this have found it does not work as well as one would hope.
Issues?
Polylines with width not supported - SolidWorks doesn't read the width of the polyline (this may have changed in recent versions of SW) so if you are using polylines with width in AutoCAD to represent traces you lose them.
Layers not Supported - most PCBs have multiple layers and you want the conductors on each layer to stay on the layer. If you try to import multiple layers into solidworks you'll find that they all get mushed together.
Manual Extrusions - You'll have to manually select the lines/arcs and extrude them to get a 'part' in Solidworks. While this is not a problem for a few pieces, a large PCB makes this quite aggravating.
No Z Data - assuming you have a 'stack' of conductor and dielectric layers, you have to import them one at time and then assemble them. Again, very time consuming.
Material Properties - it would be nice if you could pass the fact that your conductors are copper and that your board is FR4 (or alumina or whatever material) but these attributes have to be attached manually.
What Files Can Solidworks Open
Examples of DXF into SolidWorks
It might be worthwhile to actually demonstrate some of these issues mentioned above. We are going to run two experiments: Gerber to DXF using a standard converter and Gerber to DXF using Artworks GBRUNION. What is the difference?
GBR2DXF
round pads to circles in DXF draws to polylines with width no support for negative or paint/scratch layer operations supports multiple layers no understanding of drill holes no understanding of stackup position | GBRUNion
can recover arcs and circles support for negative or paint/scratch layer operations supports multiple layers no understanding of drill holes no understanding of stackup position |
Here is the set of Gerber Files we are going to use for our demo
Solidworks Failed To Open File
The red layer is the top.gbr, the green layer is the bottom.gbr, the blue layer is an inner power/ground (drawn in reverse as is typical for such layers) and the yellow layer represents the drill data which runs all the way through the board. A magenta layer is hardly visible but contains the board outline. You can download the set of Gerber files as solidworks_gerber.zip
Mostly people have to face this problem in solid works that one can not open a future version file in an older version of solid works..
Have anybody any solution.??
The aim is not to only open the file; but, i want all the features also.
8 Answers
They have also introduced a new feature into SolidWorks 2013. If you have Service Pack 4 for 2012, you will be able to open SolidWorks 2013 files. It's unclear if this will still work once a service pack is released for 2013 and the file is saved in that though.
SHAME ON SOLIDWORKS FOR THAT.... THEIR UPGRADES ARE JUST LIKE IPHONE, NOTHING JUST DIFFERENT FRONT END ANDD YEAH FILES SAVED ARE NOT BACKWORD COMPATIBLE!!!!!!!!!!
I think that if you download an IGES or STEP file made from a future version of SW then the older version of SW will try and do a feature recognition and may be able to retrieve the features (New versions often have features that are not supported in older ones) when opening the file.
BackWorks is a SolidWorks Add-in that will allow you to save your files back as far as version 2012. It Is also able to open and save future versions of SolidWorks.
This product can be downloaded from the link below and has a free trial offer. BackWorks has worked great for me in the past.
Gary
SHAME ON SOLIDWORKS FOR SUCH STUPIDITY AND FORCED SALES TACTICS
open it with solid edge and then save it as solid edge file then reopen it with solidworks
how to open future version of sollidworks file in to olders version of sollidworks ?