Hi Tom,
I wish I had a 25K spindle! I'm looking at various laminate routers. I
was using a .093" endmill. The Phenolic I was cutting made nice tame
swarf, heavy enough not to blow around, and not the "itchy glass" dust.
I'm considering plumbing up a small vacuum to handle glass dust. On the
cuts, it's the "mechanical etching" that makes the swarf. No simple
"thought cuts" of the board are needed on the mill (I have a bandsaw in
the garage shop, This mill is tabletop in my office). I'm also trying
to get the mill put into a Plexiglas display box I bought surplus. The
mill with it's steppers extends further then I thought! Box might fit
the next PCB router I have plans to build, 'tho.
I'd like to find some CEM-1 local!
Thanks for the ideas/
Alan KM6VV
twb8899 wrote:
>
> Alan,
>
> All of these circuit board laminates are very abrasive so you should
> always use carbide cutting tools. Use a spindle speed around 25,000
> rpm to get a good cut. Slower speeds can be used but cut back on the
> feed rate. I have always used .093" and .125" cutters in both CNC and
> manual pin routers with good success. The bits seem to be shot after
> about 100 feet of cutting. No matter which material we were cutting
> there was always the fine dust and never any chips. Our machines were
> equipped with vacuum extraction systems so it wasn't too bad but even
> with a vacuum system the dust was still a mess.
>
> If you are working with CEM-1 why not try scribing a line and then
> snapping the laminate on this scored line. You will be surprised at
> how clean of a break you will get. This works great as long as all of
> the cuts are straight lines. You could even try one of those ceramic
> tile cutters to put in the score line and then snap the edges off.
>
> Tom