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 So, my question is, my somewhat outdated plotter processing hardware aside, am I the only one out there who finds it beneficial to process the smallest possible data sets at all steps of PCB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