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

Hi Sage,

 

I’m not sure the spring loaded bit holder will work by itself.  It would need some means of limiting the cut depth.

 

There are several PCB routing machines that use a spring loaded motor and spindle (or “floating” head) so they can route warped PCB materials, but this is different I think.  On these machines the routing bit is held firmly in the spindle, with a cylindrical plastic “spacer” over the end of the motor and spindle to set the cutting depth.  The whole motor and spindle is then spring mounted (or sometimes just uses the weight of the motor itself with no spring).  The cylindrical spacer is often connected to a vacuum system to remove swarf as it’s cut and before it ends up under the end of the spacer.

 

I’ve been wondering how to make a spring loaded spindle with depth adjustment that can fit in that Morse tapered tool holder of my CNC machine since it doesn’t have a spring loaded motor/spindle. 

Making a spring loaded engraving bit holder is easy.  Making the depth spacer that’s easily adjusted is the problem!

 

Cheers,

Mark

 

For those that CNC mill their own PC boards I know there is autolevelling software out there to control the engraving depth, but I was wondering if the spring loaded engraving bit holders work instead of going through the whole process of probing the board etc. I can imagine having the holder run over the swarf would cause problems with the height but if you keep everything very clean as you go,  don't these devices work? Is there something else making their use undesirable?

Sage