Good Morning,

I would appreciate some feedback on the following issue (and I
apologize in advance for the length of this message).

We are plotting with a Fire 9300 plotter using, granted, a somewhat
antiquated RIP 2 (Raster image processor).  Our RIP is unable to
accept gerber data with step and repeat codes so the size of data
files we receive is of a concern to us as plot files of larger than
14M must be run as multipass plots.  At initial processor  load times
of about 5min/M, large plot files can eat up a significant chunk of
our day.

We have been noticing lately a significant increase in customer file
size particularly due to drawn "cleanup rings" around ground plane
isolations.  Upon querying one of my customers on this I was told the
following ;

He uses Protel for his board layout and has been quite conscious of
the size of his gerber output files.  Previous designs were output as
Vector Plot files to reduce size. ( We certainly appreciate this as
it reduces file transfer time, processing time at the CAM station
(data load, screen redraws, netlist extract etc.) and makes for the
smallest possible output files to our plotter, after all, my plotter
hardware, a significant investment in most shops, is designed to
rasterize the plot data).

When trying to do this with Protel's latest offering, he experienced
numerous hardware "Crashes".  Upon contacting Protel, he was told
that the software has been designed to provide rasterized gerber data
(this setting did eliminate the "Crash" problem) and that if his
board shop has a problem with this that they should get with the
program.

So, my question is, my somewhat outdated plotter processing
hardware aside,  am I the only one out there who finds it beneficial
to process the smallest possible data sets at all steps of PCB
fabrication?

Regards

John Parsons
Circuit Graphics Ltd.

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