[sdiy] Personal Pcb milling machines ???

[Jay Schwichtenberg]

This was about 15 years ago now but we had someone do some PCBs using a milling machine. The fellow that did it said he wouldn't use the milling machine if he had to do it over. He said that he wore out the milling bits pretty quick on fiberglass and their cost ended up being more than having them done. There was also a pretty big mess to clean up too.

 

From: Synth-diy [mailto:synth-diy-bounces at dropmix.xs4all.nl] On Behalf Of john slee
Sent: Wednesday, December 30, 2015 12:15 PM
To: rsdio at audiobanshee.com
Cc: sdiy
Subject: Re: [sdiy] Personal Pcb milling machines ???

 

On 31 December 2015 at 06:09, <rsdio at audiobanshee.com> wrote:

I believe it's a lot of work to master the many steps required to finish a board this way. I suppose it can be faster than ordering a board from an outside shop, but you'll be spending a lot of time that you could use more productively on something else.


One of the regulars at a hackerspace here often mills + drills his own PCBs. As you say there was a substantial investment of time, but only once while he was figuring out his workflow. He seems to turn them around fairly quickly now. It's no cheaper per area than OSHPark, Seeed or similar, but the turnaround time is plenty better. He's generally only doing one-sided boards, so no registration holes required.

 

I suppose with registration holes you could mill both sides. With a bit of care and some resistor leg offcuts you could even do vias 

 

John

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