Interesting problem.
Try loading the eagle PDF into inkscape and have a look at it.
I make solder paste stencils by printing the tcream layer in eagle. Next I load it into inkscape and then switch to the outline view. The files is saved as a SVG and then cut on a critcut machine.
A PCB like the one in your example can be easily cut. I am still working on finer pitch parts like TQFP.
3v0
--- On Fri, 9/4/09, Piers Goodhew <piers@...> wrote:
From: Piers Goodhew <piers@...>
Subject: [Homebrew_PCBs] Eagle (Mac) print quality
To: Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com
Date: Friday, September 4, 2009, 3:41 AM
Hi List,
I've just posted a couple of photos ( http://groups. yahoo.com/ group/Homebrew_ PCBs/photos/ album/1611066276 /pic/list
) showing something I've noticed Eagle do on both the venerable 5MP
at home and the (wax-based) Xerox at my current work (both
postscript). Now that I'm a solder paste/SMD zealot, it is more of an
issue than before.
(Oh, and there may also be a superfluous third image which I uploaded
when I ran out of patience and decided maybe the whole thing wasn't
working. If it's there, ignore it)
There's this whole sort-of diagonal smear thing happening, most
obviously around any through-holes - if you look at the "ex eagle" pic
(you will have to go to "large" or "original" size to see it, or click
this http://3.ly/ UfB if you're lazy) you can see a white crescent at
the bottom left of every hole, and several of the pads have pretty
much bridged to nearby traces/pours (especially between the 0603 LEDs).
Are others seeing this? (either on Mac/postscript or any other
combination) ?
If I print to PDF, open the PDF in Illustrator, convert the strokes
(it's all lines seemingly "gerber style") to outlines and print, I get
the result shown in the "ex illustrator" image - much nicer! What I
didn't think of, but will try tonight, is just printing a PDF ex-Eagle
via some other app - it may be that eagle just can't print well under
Mac OS - but how in the hell you can get a digital printer to smear
like that is something I'd like to know!
PG
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]