Mechanically milling PCBs is inferior. full stop.
It's done by people who have a unreasonable aversion to acids (and no fear
of high-speed debris projectiles or glassfiber dust strangely).
There's no real advantage.
You can read the paper on milling vs. etching by bungard (who sell
machines for both) and you'll see not even they like milling.
ST
On Thu, 08 Dec 2005 23:23:28 +0100, lcdpublishing
<
lcdpublishing@...> wrote:
> Okay, as you all know I am far from experienced with PCB making. I
>
> have gone through a variety of trials with the toner transfer method
>
> and can appreciate it. I can somewhat see it's limitations with
>
> regard to how small of a trace I could do using this process.
>
> However, if I ever need more detail, I could do the photoresist
>
> process. The chemicals work good and efficient, all around, etching
>
> works very good.
>
>
> Now about 6 months ago, I was wanting to do isolation milling as I
>
> believed it to be better. However, I am pretty much now in the
>
> belief trying isolation milling will not show any advantages over
>
> what I am doing now. I seriously doubt it would be faster than
>
> chemical etching. I don't think the tool bits would last very long,
>
> so I would guess that the tooling costs would negate the costs of
>
> the chemicals. Even though you would be cutting with a very small
>
> diameter pointed tool, I don't think you could get better results
>
> (finer pitches and traces) using a milling process.
>
>
> Is there something that I am not seeing in that process that would
>
> give it advantages over chemical etching?
>
>
> Thanks guys
>
>
> Chris