Electronic – Setting number format for PCB fabrication in Altium

altiumgerberpcbpcb-designpcb-fabrication

I 'm very new in PCB designer CAD. I have a simple PCB design in Altium which I need to create gerber and drill files before sending it to a milling machine. When I go to:

Files–>Fabrication Outputs–>Gerber Files

Here I need to select one of the formats from 2:3, 2:4, 2:5 as below:

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But I cannot decide which format to chose. How can I figure out what my resolution is and how can I associate it with these formats?

Edit: I found only this info:

If you are using one of the higher resolutions, check that the PCB
manufacturer supports that format. The 2:4 and 2:5 formats only need
to be chosen if there are holes on a grid finer than 1 mil.

What does it mean "finer than 1 mil" ? I use mm. I have holes on the PCB but when I double click on them it shows hole size and location in mm not the resolution. How can I figure out the resolution?

Best Answer

1 mil is one thousands of an inch or 25.4mm/1000 = 0.0254mm.

I usually generate my Gerbers in mm and always use the format with the greatest precision. Never had any issues.

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