[sdiy] Personal Pcb milling machines ???

[charlie wallace]

works the same way as most cnc's, conductive pathway  it makes or
breaks a circuit with the tip of the bit or some other way and you or
the machine subtracts a known depth. or it pushes a spring loaded
switch since some machines don't have a consistent electrical pathway
through the spindle.

i use a piece of FR4 with a wire soldered on the copper, the machine
moves slowly down til it makes contact to set the z height, then it
subtracts the thickness of the board which gives me the Z.

there are button press style ones on ebay but i've found them to vary
in height, i bought a nicely machined one from ebay and it was off by
a few 100 microns, it stays fairly stable but its just awkward if your
software doesn't maths

you can set them to set on break or make, if they're spring loaded, so
either the machine is moving towards it and stops when it breaks the
switch, then moves away even slower til the switch remakes a lot of
that depends on backlash of the Z and if you're using a floating head
which my pcb mill does, the floating definitely gives me the best
consistency

btw metrixcreatespace has the same pcb mill i have

my openbuilds C-Beam would probably do a decent job of pcb milling,
but not at 4 mil, the othermill is a popular one as well these days, i
see a lot of hackers getting them

cheers




On Thu, Dec 31, 2015 at 6:45 AM, Robert Spencer <rob at gmsn.co.uk> wrote:
> Is there special hardware required for the Auto-Level function on
> ChilliPepper?
>
> Rob Spencer
> GMSN!
>
> From: Synth-diy <synth-diy-bounces at dropmix.xs4all.nl> on behalf of Julien
> Delgoulet <jdelgoulet at free.fr>
> Date: Thursday, 31 December 2015 01:47
> To: Dan Snazelle <subjectivity at hotmail.com>
> Cc: sdiy <Synth-diy at dropmix.xs4all.nl>
> Subject: Re: [sdiy] Personal Pcb milling machines ???
>
> Have a look at CNC like the shapeoko. Users have successfully mill PCB for
> thru hole and SMD. One of the key thing is having a floating head (like on
> some LPKF) or having the software calculate the planearity of the board
> (like http://chilipeppr.com/tinyg does)
>
> For drilling there are some softwares that make use of a camera and some
> manually registered holes to create a transformation matrix to prevent you
> from having to perfectly align the board.
>
> Le 30 déc. 2015 à 23:10, Dan Snazelle <subjectivity at hotmail.com> a écrit :
>
> Thanks for all the advice !!!!
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On Dec 30, 2015, at 4:43 PM, rsdio at audiobanshee.com wrote:
>
>
> I didn't realize you were talking about milling the entire PCB, rather than
> just drilling the holes after etching the copper through some other means.
> Metrix has done both. They originally used the milling machine for the whole
> process, then they got an LPKF Protolaser S that can cut 2 mil trace / space
> PCBs without breaking bits. They now use the milling machine for drill holes
> only, thus the need for registration points when moving the board from one
> process to the next.
>
>
> My point is that the equipment costs can be shared if you live in an area
> where there are other PCB designers.
>
>
> Brian
>
>
>
> On Dec 30, 2015, at 11:09 AM, rsdio at audiobanshee.com wrote:
>
> Metrix Create:Space here in Seattle has a milling machine that they use and
> also make available by the hour for customer projects. I don't know its
> capabilities, but I do recall that drill bits break, and alignment is done
> by drilling guide holes before the PCB is fabricated - so that the drilling
> can line up with the traces. I also don't recall how long it takes to
> complete a board.
>
>
> 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.
>
>
> Brian
>
>
>
> On Dec 30, 2015, at 6:18 AM, Dan Snazelle <subjectivity at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> Does anyone on here own a pcb Miller ? I am starting to spend a lot on quick
> prototypes and am just wondering if throwing down a couple grand would mean
> I could go straight from a gerber to a testable board in an hour
>
>
> But I'm sure there are downsides
>
>
>
> Any info appreciated!!
>
>
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