Homebrew PCBs

Matthew Smith <matt@...> wrote:
> I create my layouts in Eagle.  When I create the PostScript file 
in the 
> CAM processor, I keep changing the X/Y offsets of each design so 
that I 
> can fill a whole sheet of paper.  As my printer is actually a PCL 
type 
> rather than PostScript, I convert PostScript to PDF and print the 
> designs using Acrobat Reader, feeding the same sheet of paper back 
in 
> each time.  

This may Produce a lot of hassle. Try out Ghostscript (and may be 
ghostview as GUI) and you will have a lot more fun. I don't know the 
postprocessing of eagle. Very often the created postscript files are 
well structured and ascii readable texts. Just take a few minutes to 
study the header. Mostly there are a few commands defined in the 
prologue. Windows postscript driver defines a lot of unused commands 
here;-) you may keep the file easier to analyse if you go to the 
settings and use there postscript level 2 and no compression...
 
> I then print all the PDFs again onto the Laserstar film.
> Note - after about the third pass through the printer, the 
Laserstar 
> film starts to curl a little; 

You only have to find the "showpage" commands, remove them (or 
comment them off, also the headers and merge them by hand by copying 
the relevant rows together after the first prologue. Ghostview will 
help you to preview the result on the monitor. You don't have to 
create pdf or anything other. Print your postscript using ghostscript 
on your printer will do the best.

> The one thing that would make my process easier is if I had a tool 
that 
> could merge my PostScript or PDF files.  Tried it using an art 
package 
> (the Gimp), without success.  I also tried a bit of raw PostScript 
> programming a year or so back, but that just gave me a headache ;-)

I guess the only problem was the wrong literature or a too high 
sophisticated printerdriver. postscript is a very powerful and 
amazing programming language and every hour you spend with it is 
worthful. I managed a lot of workaround with very basic knowledge of 
this language.

Good luck

Martin