First of all if this is more suitable for the Programming section I apologise.
In my endeavours to come up with a method to produce PCB's at home that I feel confident I've come up with this idea.
1: Design artwork with Autotrax (90's DOS based program)
2: Produce gerber file\s with Traxplot
3: Convert Autotrax gerber for use with FlatCAM I've written a quick utility in C for use with Linux
4: Use FlatCAM to produce gcode - at this point the board can be isolated routed
5: Convert FlatCAM gcode to HPGL to use with my Roland plotter, then convert to PS or EPS file.
6a: Either produce plot that and use that as a mask for exposing to Negative Dry Resist film.
6b: Print out PS or EPS file onto transparency for exposing.
7: Etch board which would essentially be an etched version of an isolated routed board.
Now I know this is a long winded process. I prefer Autotrax as it is cheap (free), easy to use, no board limits, I'm used to it and fits my needs.
Info about Autotrax and setup with DOSBox is available here.
http://airborn.com.au/layout/autotrax.html
What I would like is to have some help in testing my utilities, which are available here.
https://github.com/ozzyrob
The gerber conversion is in two versions, first attempt was a bash script, second the program written in C, no libraries other than those included with gcc are required.
The utility to produce the artwork files is a bash script, hopefully a program written in C will replace this, tho this does require the ability to use FlatCAM.
This is the first time I've felt any coding, so please excuse the formatting, logic and point out any glaring errors.
Cheers
Rob
In my endeavours to come up with a method to produce PCB's at home that I feel confident I've come up with this idea.
1: Design artwork with Autotrax (90's DOS based program)
2: Produce gerber file\s with Traxplot
3: Convert Autotrax gerber for use with FlatCAM I've written a quick utility in C for use with Linux
4: Use FlatCAM to produce gcode - at this point the board can be isolated routed
5: Convert FlatCAM gcode to HPGL to use with my Roland plotter, then convert to PS or EPS file.
6a: Either produce plot that and use that as a mask for exposing to Negative Dry Resist film.
6b: Print out PS or EPS file onto transparency for exposing.
7: Etch board which would essentially be an etched version of an isolated routed board.
Now I know this is a long winded process. I prefer Autotrax as it is cheap (free), easy to use, no board limits, I'm used to it and fits my needs.
Info about Autotrax and setup with DOSBox is available here.
http://airborn.com.au/layout/autotrax.html
What I would like is to have some help in testing my utilities, which are available here.
https://github.com/ozzyrob
The gerber conversion is in two versions, first attempt was a bash script, second the program written in C, no libraries other than those included with gcc are required.
The utility to produce the artwork files is a bash script, hopefully a program written in C will replace this, tho this does require the ability to use FlatCAM.
This is the first time I've felt any coding, so please excuse the formatting, logic and point out any glaring errors.
Cheers
Rob
