John, I can sympathize with your plight. Although I don't have the same problem (we have a newer RIP), file transfers and disk space on our fileserver have been sore spots. This may be obvious, but have you done a draw-to-flash conversion on your CAM? Depending on the board technology, maybe you can reduce your precision, ie. 5 digits down to 4 or maybe even 3. Try experimenting with leading vs trailing suppression to see if you get any improvement. Hope this helps, Rick At 09:03 AM 12/8/97 +0000, you wrote: >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So, my question is, my somewhat outdated plotter processing 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. > >############################################################## >TechNet Mail List provided as a free service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8c >############################################################## >To subscribe/unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the body: >To subscribe: SUBSCRIBE TECHNET <your full name> >To unsubscribe: SIGNOFF TECHNET >############################################################## >Please visit IPC web site (http://www.ipc.org/html/forum.htm) for additional information. >For the technical support contact Dmitriy Sklyar at [log in to unmask] or 847-509-9700 ext.311 >############################################################## > > ############################################################## TechNet Mail List provided as a free service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8c ############################################################## To subscribe/unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the body: To subscribe: SUBSCRIBE TECHNET <your full name> To unsubscribe: SIGNOFF TECHNET ############################################################## Please visit IPC web site (http://www.ipc.org/html/forum.htm) for additional information. For the technical support contact Dmitriy Sklyar at [log in to unmask] or 847-509-9700 ext.311 ##############################################################