[sdiy] Cutting PCBs w/ dremel tool

[Roy J. Tellason]

On Tuesday 25 January 2005 03:54 am, Tom Arnold wrote:
> 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 ).

I guess this is why some of the guys who are building those machines give some 
attention to enclosures and vacuum systems for dust removal...   :-)

> 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.

I got a bottle of that stuff ages ago,  and some of that dry-transfer resist 
they sold,  but I'm just *not* gonna go there.  <shrug>