alan_m wrote:
On 11/02/2020 13:48, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

Can Sketchup produce the files a PCB maker uses to control their machines?


Do you mean for something like a cnc machine that mills off the unwanted
copper or something that produces the etching and screen printing masks?

Either way, the general flow is to produce Gerber (which is a specialised
form of G-code) and that goes to either milling or etching equipment.
However etching is much superior unless you need it absolutely right now and
are standing in front of a mill. Chinese fabs like jlcpcb.com are
ultra-cheap for etching if you aren't in a hurry.

Perhaps investigate Eagle free version (limited to double sided and
80cm2 board area for the free version). Support for Win/MAC/Linux.

https://www.autodesk.co.uk/products/eagle/free-download

I'd strongly suggest Kicad over Eagle. Kicad is open source and free
without any limits as to size or layers. Eagle has gone to a 'cloud based'
subscription model - you have to login, it chats to their server before you
can use it. A lot of the maker community has moved over to Kicad, which
means there are good libraries for lots of parts (although Kicad's library
management could be better).

The other thing is the Eagle UI is backwards to what most people are used
to. Most CAD tools have you select something and then apply an action to it
(ie click then delete). In Eagle you select the mode and then the item, so
you go into 'Delete' mode and then click on things to delete. That's
slightly quicker if you want to apply the action to multiple things, but
it's different from the common way of right-clicking on something and
selecting an action from a menu when you don't know what actions are
available. Eagle doing things backwards like this makes it harder to pick
up and does your head in for a while.

Theo