Archive of the former Yahoo!Groups mailing list: Homebrew PCBs

previous by date index next by date
previous in topic topic list next in topic

Subject: Re: [Homebrew_PCBs] Printer "drag shrink"

From: Piers Goodhew <piers@...>
Date: 2009-03-24

This is probably something in the 10% range. What I failed to clearly
express is that is only vertical (i.e. along the length of the paper)
horizontally, it seems pretty perfect (I can only hold a draft print
on normal paper above it with bright light - they line up well across
but not up and down. Which is why I assume it's due to drag.

Plus the PCB's I have made ∗do∗ line up with the iPod connector which
is a series of 15, 16mil traces, which is very obviously wrong on this
one. (Though, I was almost certainly printing it at 90° to the current
arrangement in the past)

I just got my other half to check the stock's weight and it's 210 gsm,
so the total was 290, which is 3.6 x the standard weight here ... HP
sez that 158 is the max (42lbs) so I was almost double.

Didn't somebody say they were using pages out of some catalogue?

PG

On 24/03/2009, at 12:38 PM, DJ Delorie wrote:

>
> I've stuck the thick Pulsar paper to regular paper and sent it through
> my laser printers in the past. However, even on just bond paper my
> printers shrink the print a little, about 0.5% to 1%. Are you seeing
> a small even shrinkage, or random major shrinkage? Can you measure a
> reference print and compensate? (assuming your software has that
> feature, gEDA's pcb does). Oh - and measure the toner on the pcb, not
> the toner on the printer, as the rest of the process changes the size
> a little also.
>
> However, I have had cases where "card stock" (100lb, 5x thicker than
> standard bond) has problems getting through my current laser printer.
> It depends.
>
>