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

A few years ago before I retired I had access to a large (3ft X 4 ft) CNC YAG laser system that I used on occasion to do the same thing. It worked well and I was able to get very fine lines, in fact, too narrow. The laser cut was only about .001-.002" wide, and usually I had to make multiple cuts to get it to etch cleanly. Definitely overkill considering the cost of the syatem, but it was not being used for anything else at the time.

One other problem that needs to be resolved as with any technique like this. You need software to remove the paint between traces. It is much easier to create lines where you want traces. I used AutoCad to draw lines around all connected pads creating "islands" of connected pads. While this worked, the time I spent fiddling with it was not cost effective. You might be able to create a negative image of the PCB traces and find some software that would create a raster scan of all areas between traces. Perhaps if you have MasterCam or some similar program you could create "G code" to accomplish this since it is essentially a pocket routine.

Bob






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