gEDA-user: I need to open and print a PCB created in ExpressPCB: What are my options?

["Jeremy Pedersen" <ubernerd.jeremy@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hello everyone,

I am a second semester Electrical Engineering Technologies student at a community college. To get some practice with circuit prototyping/manufacture I would like to try my hand at printing a PCB layout for a laser tag system on photo transfer paper and using it to etch a PCB. The first problem I ran into during this process was that the MilesTag project (link here: 
http://lasertagparts.com/mtdesign.htm) provided no PCB layouts, only schematics. Having never used any EDA software before, I e-mailed these folks and asked if I could have PCB layouts for printing. 

The MilesTag project was kind enough to place PCB layouts on their website, but they were produced using ExpressPCB and I cannot open them with gerbv or PCB! I gather that RS-274D files are not supported by either of these programs (PCB and gerbv), and nothing short of a very rough perl script (that I turned up after searching the archives of this mailing list)  seems to exist for  converting these .pcb files to the RS-274x format. 

This leaves me with very limited options: 

- I can install ExpressPCB on a windows machine if I can find one with a suitable printer (such as an HP Deskjet)
- I can try to use this perl script (no idea how it works: I know zero perl)
- I can install ExpressPCB in wine, but I cannot make it talk to my printer, even with cups enabled (I compiled wine from source)

I have a few questions concerning those options, and if they are not *technically* gEDA related, please forgive me:

- Can ExpressPCB save in other formats like RS-274x? If so, I might be able to ask (politely, of course) if the MilesTag folks could post new PCB files that I could use. 

- Does anyone here use ExpressPCB in wine as a supplement to gEDA for when you encounter .pcb's that can't be opened in PCB? If so, how do you get things printed from inside wine?

- Best of all, is anyone here aware of a newer/more complete script or program capable of converting an RS-274D to an RS-274x file?

- And last but not least, could I write my own schematics (using the schematics on the MilesTag site) and make my own PCB from this schematic? (link to schematics: 
http://lasertagparts.com/mt5xx.htm). Looking at that schematic, could anyone here tell me what chance I stand of making a PCB layout that works? If so, how long would it take someone starting from almost absolute zero to create these files? What are the chances the first (auto-routed) two sided boards would work? I have looked into gEDA and it looks very complicated at first glance, yet very powerful -- like most things under Linux :-) -- what documentation should I peruse if I were to attempt this feat? I should probably be learning gEDA anyway so that I can avoid the software we must use at school: MultiSim.

This is my first foray into EDA and I understand that my ignorance probably shows, so thank you very much for your patience,
Jeremy


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