PCB DESIGN - All In One v2.5 - 32 inputs with 74HC4851

[gastric]

If you're sure the image is fine then it has to be some sort of printing issue though I'm unsure what.

[jman 31]

make sure all "print to scale" or "fit to page" functions on the printer software are turned off.

[gastric]

Jman31 - have you successfully printed the board image to the correct size? Part of my struggle is I'm not the one doing the printing as I don't have physical access to a laser printer. But my wife has made a handful of test prints at work and swears she's set it to 600dpi with no scaling/fit to page. It prints slightly too large. I paid Staples to print and it was the exact same size. My Mom was spewing 10 pages in her test print, but she's the least computer savvy person.

And thus I'm still stuck on Step 1. Print the image. It's not going well at all. I don't generally give up easily. But the cost of the blank copper clad boards and the frustrating just trying to print the damn image is making me wish I had just done a breadboard or bought a V2.7 board and skipped trying to fab a PCB. Though by all accounts it should be pretty easy.

Wouldn't printing would be easiest if it was provided in a PDF with the image the proper absolute size?

[jamalpiper]

I'm having trouble printing it too, I was on a windows XP system, without any special photo-editing software (it was at my school's library) and I couldn't print it to the correct size, which software could do this correctly? Any non-resizing settings I set were undone by windows asking me for the formatting and multiple prints (full size centered, rotated, cropped, business cards, etc).

A PDF with the correct size would eliminated this, and would have saved me from being late to my last class.

[dmitri]

I'm having trouble printing it too, I was on a windows XP system, without any special photo-editing software (it was at my school's library) and I couldn't print it to the correct size, which software could do this correctly? Any non-resizing settings I set were undone by windows asking me for the formatting and multiple prints (full size centered, rotated, cropped, business cards, etc).

A PDF with the correct size would eliminated this, and would have saved me from being late to my last class.

Why not to take OpenOffice, paste the image in the document and export it as PDF?

[gastric]

This is a timely reply to this thread. After failures printing elsewhere I actually ordered a Samsung laser printer so I can do the printing at home. I needed a new printer anyway. The printer was delivered about 20 minutes ago and I was completing the setup when the email notification about this thread arrived.

Anyway, here's my attempts at printing:

1. My first attempt printing I used MS Paint I confirmed the printer driver had no scaling enabled and it was set to 600dpi and not 1200dpi and the resulting print was the board image was broken across about 10 pages of prints.
2. Attempt to print using most other image applications and the Windows Photo Printing Wizard appears which I'm assuming will totally bungle the print job as it always scales the images to specific photo output sizes.
3. If you attempt to copy the GIF to Word the image is much too large to fit onto a single piece of paper, the print preview looks similar (though more of the image is visible on each page) to the multi-page output I received in my first try above.

Seriously, printing a silly GIF is making me feel like a complete computer novice here. This is definitely much, much harder than it should be. I think at this point I've spent about 12 hours researching, building a price list, printing, pulling out hair, etc. and have nothing but some incorrectly sized prints to show for it.

If someone has genuinely printed this board successfully please provide step-by-step instructions so the rest of us can do the same.

[bobnickelson]

This is a timely reply to this thread. After failures printing elsewhere I actually ordered a Samsung laser printer so I can do the printing at home. I needed a new printer anyway. The printer was delivered about 20 minutes ago and I was completing the setup when the email notification about this thread arrived.

Anyway, here's my attempts at printing:

1. My first attempt printing I used MS Paint I confirmed the printer driver had no scaling enabled and it was set to 600dpi and not 1200dpi and the resulting print was the board image was broken across about 10 pages of prints.
2. Attempt to print using most other image applications and the Windows Photo Printing Wizard appears which I'm assuming will totally bungle the print job as it always scales the images to specific photo output sizes.
3. If you attempt to copy the GIF to Word the image is much too large to fit onto a single piece of paper, the print preview looks similar (though more of the image is visible on each page) to the multi-page output I received in my first try above.

Seriously, printing a silly GIF is making me feel like a complete computer novice here. This is definitely much, much harder than it should be. I think at this point I've spent about 12 hours researching, building a price list, printing, pulling out hair, etc. and have nothing but some incorrectly sized prints to show for it.

If someone has genuinely printed this board successfully please provide step-by-step instructions so the rest of us can do the same.

Ha, I just got my laser printer in the mail yesterday. What I did was I put the image into MsWord and scaled it appropriately. I forgot the exact dimensions, but if you take the pixels and divide them by 600 you get the correct dimensions in inches.

The problem I'm having is actually getting a nice clean transfer, I’m getting close but some of these traces are so small that close doesn’t cut it.

I think the problem I’m having with my transfer is that I’m using to fine of sandpaper to prep the board with. I used staples gloss paper that many have said works great, but to get that off the board takes forever.

Anyone have any tips for toner transfer? Right now I’m using magazine paper to print on, which makes it allot easier to remove then gloss picture paper, but I'm having problems with broken traces and bridges between traces. When I print it out on to any paper it prints fine, everything is connected and spaced correctly however, when I do the transfer it doesn’t come out as fine as the original print.

[gastric]

I don't think scaling in MS Word is appropriate as by default Word will round the values due to it's limited 2 decimal precision. Using MS Word scaling I get the following:

1. Original image size is 3325 pixels x 1671 pixels.
2. Divide that by 600 to get the "dimensions in inches".
3. You then have to scale the image to 5.5416666666666666666666666666667 inches x 2.785 inches.
4. Manually enter one of the dimensions and the other is computed automatically thanks to "lock aspect ratio". So you get an image 5.5416666666666666666666666666667 inches x 2.78 inches. Or an image 5.53 inches by 2.765 inches depending on which value you input.
5. This results in an image that is slightly too small to fit the components properly. I tested with a 40P IDE connector and 16P DIP socket. You'll notice pins that appear centered on one side of the component are eventually off center (seen with the 16P) or completely unable to fit on the board (40P).
6. Uncheck "lock ratio" in Word and manually enter both values and the resulting image is still printed too small.

Note that this is the OPPOSITE issue I've had with previous printing which is that the resulting board image is much too large at about 8 inches x 4 inches. But I didn't personally do the printing that resulted in the too-large images so I can't say what settings, programs, etc. were used. But I'm unable to reproduce the too-large image.

I think what would be easiest is if someone could provide one of the following:

1. Actual PCB program file we can open and print directly from the PCB software. Which would have to be free so everyone can install the software to facilitate the printing. I'm assuming this would totally eliminate the issues printing the GIF.
2. PDF with the image properly scaled. Then we have a universal document that theoretically prints correctly for everyone with no effort.
3. Some other image file that is easier to print. Why isn't the GIF simply scaled to the proper dimensions to begin with? And why can't I figure out how to scale it myself.

At this point I have to defer to someone else as I'm out of ideas and skills.... printing a GIF. Very humbling and maddening.

[jman 31]

Yes, BobNickelson hit the nail on the head. You will divide the pixels by 600 which will give you a decimal equivalent in inches. You will then plug that number back into the photo editing program you are using, in the image sizing option, and that should print correctly. I tried it in MS paint, but it didn't work with that program (it would make the correct size image, but it would only be a part of the actual image). It did work in Adobe Photoshop though. I think the correct number in inches is 5.542" wide by 2.785" tall.

I don't have any components to check it with. I will look into the pcb program idea. I think there is one called eagle or something that is free.

EDIT: here is the link to the pcb program ftp://ftp.cadsoft.de/eagle/program/5.2/ ... -5.2.0.exe

[jman 31]

Can someone that has the components print this PDF out and see if it's the right size? Any printer will do, just check it against the size of the components. Doesn't have to be a laser printer for what I'm after.

PCB v2_5 Bottom 600dpi resized.pdf