Archive of the former Yahoo!Groups mailing list: Homebrew PCBs

Hello Homebrew Group!

Are there any tips for this process:

1. Use a CNC/Mach3 setup to drill holes in copper board

2. Use same CNC/Mach3 setup and a suitable etch-resist pen to draw the circuit tracks on the copper

3. Etch the board


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It seems it could be a simple enough process. However I am going in circles trying to fathom how to generate/run the plot file.

The source is drawn in Diptrace. I can export bmp or dxf.
I have CamBam and can import the dxf to export Gcode - although I might be getting better results when I save to bmp from DipTrace then import to InkScape and convert to Vector... well that might be a red herring...

I think my problem at the moment is that I can draw/plot the outline, but not generate the gcode to fill in the pads/tracks.

Anyhow...

Is anyone else doing this? May I ask how and how well it works ?