Homebrew PCBs

Ah, and there's the tool snob.

Despite that, you don't use lasers for accuracy, that's what jigs are for.
Even then you need to spend the time setting it up.  If you know what your
blade kerf currently is then a laser isn't really for you.

Lasers are good for 'close enough is good enough' stuff, where half a mm
here or there doesn't matter much, and in a lot of cases it doesn't.  Great
for construction work where you can skip the 'mark the wood then fiddle
about and line up the blade then cut it' step.

A cross-hair laser has the same problems as a dot, you need to keep aligning
it if your working on stuff that's different thicknesses, or you move the
table.  Using two line lasers works regardless of the work surface height.
You can adjust the line thickness easily enough, even on the cheap ones.
Even with thick lines, picking out where they intersect is pretty easy.

Tony




That's because most cheap tools have a laser or two now, the lasers
they use are inaccurate (not set correctly), and bright enough to
blind you for the rest of the day (probably intentional so you don't
see how off they are).

I don't know if you can make laser crosshairs fine enough to be useful
for PCB work, the ones I have seen on saws and drill presses would be
worthless for the purpose because the line is too wide.

ST

On Mon, May 24, 2010 at 5:54 PM, Tony Smith <ajsmith@...> wrote:

> Oh, and tool snobs sneer when you say your power tool has a laser.  Real
> tool snobs sneer at electricity.
>
> Tony


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