oops

2 days later I find this is a built in feature to fusion 360... Granted it doesn't include the solderpaste layer, but it's worth a shot if youre looking at this project

What does it do?

It takes a gerber file* and returns a dxf file*

Why the asterisks?

I tested this on fusion 360 (2024?) and while it can take an exported layer from Fusion and make a valid DXF file, Fusion refuses to read it properly. converting to dwg online and then opening it makes it work right. (although that process seems to change the scale by a factor of 10)

Printed stencil (results)

Here is the dxf after importing to fusion, extruding it, and then adding a lip to place the PCB. The stencil was printed on a Bambu X1C with 0.2mm nozzle, 0.06mm layer height. Ended up being 0.18mm thick, where the PCBWay default is 0.12mm thick for their stencils. I haven't used it because I'm still waiting on the PCB, but heres the pros and cons;

Pros:

• Faster (30 minutes vs 5 days + shipping)
• Cheaper (cents of filament as opposed to ~$50)
• Can add custom locating features, including a lip in the 3rd dimension

Cons:

• Lower quality (I'll attach results when I can)
• slightly thicker (0.12mm seems to be doable though which is the PCBWay stencil default)
• You have to debug and fix my code if; you aren't using fusion360, your gerber files uses rectangular interpolated apertures, your gerber files actually use aperture macros, they use arc interpolation, or anything else I haven't thought of.

Basically it works on my machine, email me if you really want to work on this, but I got what I needed out of it

There are dirty tricks everywhere because Gerber is the worst. Basically G-Code but at home.

Error handling

Honestly non-existant. I would want to work more on the parser lib first to make it not full of panics.

Why did I do it?

PCBWay (not sponsored) charged me 3 times more for adding a single stencil to my order. This project however only cost me days of work and about 12 beers.