EasyTrace5000 Operation Guide

Overview

Each operation is its own entry in the tree. You give it a source file, set its parameters, and generate. Operations are independent - generating one never touches another. Every parameter named below is documented in full on the Parameter Guide.

Five operations cover a board. Each one supports a set of machines, and the machine you choose changes how much you have to fill in: a router job needs depth, feeds and toolpaths, while a laser or knife job needs neither.

Curved geometry stays curved all the way to the file, so an offset pad exports as a real arc rather than a string of tiny line segments - smaller programs, and no stuttering where your machine would otherwise chew through a polygon approximation.

Copper Isolation

Cuts a clearance channel around copper so traces and pads end up electrically separated. Passes run outward from the copper edge; each extra pass widens the cleared band.

Use it for: the primary copper-separation pass on any single-sided board.

Key parameters: tool diameter, number of passes, step-over, combine passes. More passes clear more copper between traces but take longer to cut.

V-bits are the usual choice here, and the width one cuts depends on how deep it goes - so the offsets are calculated from the width it will actually produce at your cut depth, not the number printed on the packet. Change your depth and the isolation width changes with it.

On a laser, the same isolation width defines a band around the copper to ablate, filled by whichever strategy you choose. See the Laser Guide.

Drill

Handles holes from Excellon files and from SVG circles and obrounds. Each hole is measured against your tool and given a strategy automatically: drilled straight down when the tool matches, milled in a circle when the hole is bigger.

A hole too small for the tool still gets marked, so nothing is silently dropped - it comes out oversize and you know exactly where it is. Obround slots become milled slots along their centreline. Anything else in the file is skipped with a warning rather than guessed at.

SVG sources get an extra option: circles and obround-shaped paths can be treated as holes on import, so a hand-drawn board can be drilled without an Excellon file.

Multi-tool drilling

Turn on Multi-Tool Drilling for a table with a row per hole size. Each row gets its own strategy (peck, mill or skip), its own cutter diameter and its own tool number. The single-tool fields disappear while it is on, because the table is making those decisions instead.

• Auto-match Tool Library fills strategy and cutter from your tool library.
• Copy Excellon T numbers pulls the numbers out of the file header. Those are the file's own indices, not your machine's slots - check them before you cut.
• A row with no tool number falls back to the operation's number rather than blocking the export.

On export, a single-file job puts the tool changes inline. In multi-file mode, Split drill files by hole diameter writes one program per size - which is how you run a multi-tool drill job on a machine without a changer.

Use it for: through-holes, vias, and slotted mounting holes.

Key parameters: mill holes and mill step-over; drill cycle (G81/G82/G83/G73), peck depth, dwell time, retract height; entry type and multi-depth for milled holes.

Copper Clearing

Removes large copper areas - ground pours, fills - rather than just isolating them. Passes work inward until the area is gone, and islands inside a pour are recognised and left standing.

Running out of material is the intended end state, so a message saying the geometry collapsed at some pass is this operation finishing normally.

Use it for: boards where isolation alone would leave too much conductive copper - RF grounds, exposed pours, anything you plan to solder near.

Key parameters: tool diameter and step-over. A larger tool clears far faster and is the right call unless the area has fine detail.

On a laser, the copper itself is the area to ablate and your chosen strategy fills it.

Board Cutout

Cuts the board free from the stock along its outline, and cuts any internal openings.

Holding tabs leave small uncut bridges so the board does not shift on the final pass. Tab height is measured up from the cut floor: a 0.5 mm tab on a 1.8 mm cut leaves 0.5 mm of material holding the board.

If your outline has small gaps where segments do not quite meet, you get a prompt offering to close them rather than an open path that would produce a nonsense toolpath. Multiple boards in one file, including nested openings, are handled as separate outlines.

Use it for: the final perimeter cut and any internal cut-outs - windows, large slots, panel separations.

Key parameters: cut side; number of tabs, tab width, tab height.

Stencil

Generates solder-paste apertures from your pad geometry. It filters the source down to pads, shrinks or grows each aperture to suit your paste, and produces a layer ready to cut out of stencil stock.

Every machine can make one, and the same geometry serves all three:

Laser

Cuts the apertures directly. Nothing extra to configure - see the Laser Guide.

Vinyl/Drag knife

Produces a vector file with the blade offset applied, for a knife plotter or vinyl cutter.

Router

Mills the apertures out of thin stock, with depth and feeds like any other milling operation.

On the CNC route you choose between router and knife with the Stencil Output setting, which changes the rest of the form to match. On a laser there is nothing to choose.

Aperture offset

Shrinks or grows every aperture at once. A small negative value such as -0.05 mm is the usual starting point - slightly smaller apertures deposit slightly less paste, which is what stops bridging between close pads on fine-pitch parts.

Corner radius

Rounds the corners of each aperture. A vinyl cutter or drag knife need this, because their blade physically cannot turn a sharp corner - without a radius they can drag through and distorts the material. Set a radius smaller than the blade can produce and the corners come out square anyway.

On a laser or a router the radius is optional. Rounded apertures release paste marginally more cleanly, so it is worth trying on fine-pitch work, but square is fine.

Registration holes

Optional alignment holes outside the board, for pinning the stencil over the PCB. They ignore the aperture offset and the corner radius - they have to match your dowels, not your paste.

Use it for: paste stencils for SMD assembly, cut on a laser, a knife plotter, or milled on the router.

Key parameters: stencil output (CNC route only); aperture offset; ignore solid regions; exclude pads over drill holes; corner radius; registration holes with diameter and margin.

Running Order

Operations are independent, but the order you export them in is not. A sensible default:

1. Copper isolation - defines the trace boundaries while the board is still fully supported.
2. Copper clearing - removes the bulk, after the boundaries exist.
3. Drilling - often shares a tool with the cutout, which is worth planning for on a machine without a tool changer.
4. Board cutout - last, so the board stays attached for everything before it.

The stencil is a separate piece of stock and can be cut whenever. Set the order in the Export Manager; the order in the tree does not affect the output.