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

Hello all,

We've visited this before - the Silhouette cameo vinyl cutter that
Mike used to directly cut traces in copperclad. Unfortunately, I was
not able to get his technique to work very well, but now I'd like to
use the machine to "print" traces using heat cured electrically
conductive one-part epoxy. What I'd like to do is convert the cutter
to a plotter. As it is now, the vinyl cutter uses its proprietary
software to cut (or sketch, using a pen holder) around the edges of
the traces, which is fine (sort of) for isolating the traces, but not
what I want here. What I'd really like is to use it like a plotter,
drawing the traces down the middle of the designed trace. The width
of the trace could be controlled by using different needles on the
dispenser or controlling the air pressure.

I'm willing to rip out the electronics and make my own stepper
drivers, but I'd like to know what software I would use to run the
converted machine, presumably using some form of HPGL. Does anyone
know how this would be done? I really don't want to reinvent the
wheel here, but I'm willing to do a bit of soldering if someone could
point me in a reasonable direction. Thanks for any help or insight!

Mark