How to Generate Gerber, Drill Files and Centroid File From Eagle 9.6.2

In this tutorial, we’ll walk you through the process of creating Gerber files and drill files from an Autodesk Eagle 9.6.2 CAD project. This guide assumes you have basic familiarity with Eagle and its interface.

Generating Gerber, Drill Files, and Centroid Files (PnP Files)

• Start by opening the Control Panel in Eagle and selecting “File” > “Open” > “Board.” From here, choose the .brd file you wish to work with. For demonstration purposes, we'll be using the Arduino MEGA2560 reference board file, named Arduino_MEGA2560_ref.brd.

This is what the PCB layout should look like once opened:

• Next, click on the CAM Processor button located on the toolbar (the one without the green arrow), or navigate to “File” > “CAM Processor.”

Tips: Before exporting Gerber files, it’s highly recommended to run a Design Rule Check (DRC) to ensure there are no errors or issues that could cause problems during manufacturing.

• Now, click the document icon next to the CAM file name and select “Load CAM Jobs” > “Examples.” From the list, pick the appropriate CAM file for your design. Since we’re working with a two-layer board, we’ll select “example_2_layer.cam.”

• On the right-hand side, use the Gerber previewer to inspect the layers of the Gerber files you’ve generated. Once satisfied, enable the “Export as ZIP” option and click “Process Job” to continue.

Note: Make sure to uncheck the “Negative image” option, as highlighted by the red box in the following image:

This action will create a ZIP folder containing all the necessary Gerber files for your PCB.

To explore the contents of the ZIP folder, simply right-click on it and extract all the files:

With that, you’ve successfully created Gerber and drill files using Eagle 9.6.2. The centroid file (PnP file) can be found within the Assembly folder.

Using PCBWay’s Online Gerber Viewer

Once you’ve exported your Gerber and drill files, you can preview them using PCBWay’s Online Gerber Viewer:

For more information about the PCBWay Online Gerber Viewer, check out the article titled “Online Gerber Viewer with Long-Awaited Service Now Available at PCBWay.”