[sdiy] Cutting PCBs w/ dremel tool

[Tom Arnold]

On Mon, Jan 24, 2005 at 07:37:19PM -0800, s wrote:
> Have any of you tried to cut PCBs with the rotary
> cutting bits for dremel tools at all? Did it work
> well?

Are you talking about cutting traces or trimming the board?

If you are talking about trimming the board, messy messy and you'll be
picking fibreglass out of your teeth for weeks.  I usually score the board
then break it cause I dont have a sheer.  Then I clean the board edge with
wet sandpaper and throw it away immediatly.

As far as manually etching traces, its doable but see above, you dig into
the fibreglass and it gets messy quick.  I did just manually make a board
without chemical etching by using an xacto knife to cut the traces but it
was very simple board ( power distribution ).

A better method for simple boards, although ugly, is ferric chloride from
Radio Shack along with a radio shack etch resist pen ( fancy sharpie ).
Works tolerably, is quick and very low tech.  Also cheap, about $10 in
materials and both can do multiple simple boards.  Hint : clean the heck out
of your board before applying the resist pen.

-- 
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 - Tom Arnold       -  Free Synth DIY webspace http://www.sdiy.org 
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