Overly complicated.
We worked out how to solve this problem ages ago, with no different PCB
holders to make and no holes to drill.
You simply stop at that bottom plate, stick a strip of PCB material to the
leading edge that has a mark in the center.
Then you mark the edge of your pcb about in the center as well, with a
pencil or a knife or whatever. You simply push the PCB against the
straight edge and align the two center marks. If some sort of force is
required to hold it in place it is easy to either stick it down with tape
at the edge or build some sort of clamp.
Then you print, take the PCB out, dry it, put it in again other side
around taking care to alignmen the two center marks.
If you really insist on having those overly complicated pegs and having to
drill holes into the PCB you could simply make a row of holes like 1cm
apart in the bottom plate, and number them. Then you could set the pegs
for different board sizes quite easily. But i can't see why you'd want to
do that other than maybe if you cnc drilled the whole board before
printing.
ST
On Tue, 30 May 2006 04:58:34 +0200, Robert Hedan
<
robert.hedan@...> wrote:
> I've been doing a lot of 'thinking' on how I'm going to consistently
> pass a
> PCB through the printer. It quickly became obvious after reading
> Volkan's
> 'align with the PCB sticks' technique that an easier method would be
> nice to
> have.
> Volkan's technique will probably be better for one-offs, but I'm looking
> for
> consistent results for multiple identical prints. So, I've come up with
> this basic design:
> http://www.xavierkamial.com/images/Epson%20C84%20chariot.JPG
> Start reading the pic from the bottom-up, I drew it as I was
> constructing it
> in my head.
> The CHARIOT will be a permanent unit, it will be used all the time to
> pass
> PCBs though the printer. The PCB HOLDER has to be fabricated for each
> individual PCB, unless they share alignment hole pattern, then good for
> you.
> Consider this step equivalent to the 'tooling charge' that PCB
> fabricators
> charge you for an order.
> One issue that will have to be addressed is double-sided alignment. QCAD
> has an alignment offset, so I can compensate quite easily. Others may
> have
> a problem printing the bottom side 'exactly' over the top side. Maybe
> using
> 2 PCB HOLDERs might be an option?
> The nice thing is that you can whip out PCBs with little effort once the
> PCB
> HOLDER is fabricated, making error-correction a much easier task. (I was
> thinking of Chris when I wrote that last sentence)
> Robert
> :D