Homebrew PCBs

The bitmap idea sounds like a good possibility.

As far as I know, the mac print engine is CUPS and I would guess that everything gets fed through an intermediate rendering stage - probably postscript and only then will the driver talk to the printer. Pure conjecture for now.


The printer claims to be able to do 1200 dpi and I know it will be pushing the limits of what might be possible. Yet I recall others claiming to have managed it so I will persist for a while.


Peter Harrison




On 24 Dec 2011, at 06:23, DJ Delorie wrote:

> 
> Keep in mind, the average laser printer (including yours) is 600 DPI -
> that's 1.33 mils PER PIXEL.  An 0.5mm pitch part has pads on the order
> of only six pixels, so "off by one" is a 16% difference.
> 
> Som postscript printers "fill" a region by drawing both the outline and
> the fill. That tends to produce features that are one pixel larger than
> you expect.  gEDA's PCB has a setting to compensate for this if needed,
> or you can use some other program to convert the output to a 600 DPI
> bitmap, preview it, adjust if needed, and print the bitmap.
> 
> 
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