HP-25C Eumulator

[matthiaspaul]

(01-19-2015 01:11 PM)Chris Chung Wrote:  I have difficult w/ the PCB design s/w (Fritzing) in that I can't change the font to one that contains Greek characters. I hope this will change in the future (when Fritzing supports it). I never learn to use Eagle or some other professional layout s/w.

Actually, only 7-bit ASCII is supported across platforms. Anything beyond this requires the local environment to reliably support this when doing the CAM processing yourself, and/or special arrangements between the design house and the PCB manufacturer (when the CAM processing is done by them). Since most small design houses just send their board file(s) to the manufacturer rather than creating the Gerber / Excellon etc. files for them, the manufacturer needs to know which character set and font was used in the design, and he needs to be able to exactly replicate it on his system (which is often not possible for various reasons).

This is a common cause for problems, with script either being reproduced in a different font, size or ratio, or in a different character set with swapped or garbled characters. While this just not looks nice most of the time, it can even ruin a layout if it creates undesired connections in the copper layers. So, unless you can do all the CAM processing yourself (after negotiating with the manufacturer the specific parameters required for their individual manufacturing process), it is a very good idea to stick to 7-bit ASCII for any copper text or silk screen, even if your CAD software would offer you to use other character sets as well. Anything else may work by chance, but often does not as there are too many difficult to control variables involved. The usage of non-ASCII characters or non-vector fonts in designs are therefore often regarded as potential errors and "corrected" before manufacturing.

If Fritzing (which appears to be an entry-level system) does not even offer to enter characters outside the ASCII range, they might just keep their users from running into problems they might have difficulties to understand and solve, as this would require some insights into the manufacturing process as well - and users new to this typically view the manufacturing as a "black box", only.

Greetings,

Matthias