This program was written in postscript about 4 or 5 years ago. Given the
change in production methods, costs, and improvements in the ExpressPCB
program, to include Schematic capture and a large user freindly and
extensible footprint libray, the old program is obsolete.

If you have not downloaded the latest version, it now supports some limited
bmp and DXF export.

Where ERPS was involved was my offer to volunteer my time to convert this
to a program for general use in order to expidite some lack of progress in
the Gizmocopter development. These issues are no longer valid.

As reported to the group steps involved were.
1) to print the schematic to a postscript file, using an Apple laswerriter
360 driver.
2) Edit out the grey bakground and grid, by hand searching for the setcolor
operator.
3) Replace the poscript bottleneck procedures for the move to lineto
instructions with Gerber instructions.
4) Recover the converted file from the postcript diagnostic backchannel on
a specific brand of Laser printer.

Only the default aperture list was supported. Additional steps were needed
for creation of the drill file.

Step 2 can be used to make camera ready arwork. I did this using PCB
transfer paper which is advertised in the back of Nuts and Volts magazine.
There is an additional step in that the image must be mirrored.

This made sense when labor time costs were not considered. Since the
routing is already done on your boards, It would be easier to re-enter them
into a Gerber pakage which can handle Aperture files and inter board vias.
A few are suggested at the end of this missive.

Given the time and costs it is hard to beat the MFGs pricing. Using the
express service, it is easy to get costs down as there is a lot of
competition worldwide now accessible on the net.

Eagle and autotrax make simular low cost layout software
< http://www.autotraxeda.com/>
<http://www.demotech.dk/en-us/dept_1.html>

Some other competing online rapid prototyping places are
<http://www.pcbnet.com/>
<http://www.pcbpool.com/ppuk/info.html>

-julieP


>Hello,
>
>    Would you be able to send me your conversion program? I too have
>designed several boards in ExpressPCB, and need them as Gerber files. I
>found one DXF to Gerber conversion utility, but it won't work very well.
>
>    Thank you very much,
>        Sincerely,
>               Malcolm Stagg


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