Charlie,
I recently purchased a 3axis router kit from www.zentoolkits.com. A good price and straightforward to set up.
I can recommend it for both routing small parts out of wood and plastic, as well as for pcb tracks and drilling holes.
I used a small finish router for wood and plastic, and spindle motor zenntoolworks sells fro pcbs.
Mat
--- In Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com, "gandolfreefer" <synchronousmosfet@...> wrote:
>
> I really appreciate all the answers; very helpful, and I'm still rereading them all and ruminating on it all....
>
> ....part of figuring out what method I'm going to commit to is I'm now in the philipines, doing medical mission work and R & D, here for quite a while, and I have to consider local supplies, and it turns out getting all my PCB fab stuff sent to me is not as simple as I thought it would be.....
>
> So, I'm now considering building a 3D router table/stepper-controlled, and just route the PCB's....which would also include being able to drill the holes automatically...
>
> The nice thing about this, is that even though it's expensive to setup, once it's done, no worries about type of paper, type of printer, etchant, etc., etc....
>
> I just wouldn't be able to do very fine stuff, I presume...but I wasn't planning on making boards for surface mount IC's anyway...
>
> Suggestions?
>
> Best, Charlie
>