Homebrew PCBs

Tony,

Interesting observation. I heard recently that we have more "hand made"
products today than ever before. Those 50,000 workers at Foxcom are doing a
lot of assembly of machine made parts. I have taken apart an iPod touch and
can tell you there are a lot of difficult to fit parts in there.

Since there is money to be made finding a solution to this general problem,
I'm sure one will be found.

Thanks,

Rick

-----Original Message-----
From: Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com [mailto:Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com]
On Behalf Of Tony Smith
Sent: Tuesday, January 29, 2013 8:58 PM
To: Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [Homebrew_PCBs] Re: What size drill bits?

> You are a man after my own heart! I'm a real sucker for simple, 
> elegant
solutions
> to difficult problems. The fact that you can beat CNC with a dangling
drill brings
> a big smile to my mouth.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Rick


Very old, very well-known and studied problem.  That's why in many cases the
robots make the parts and the meatbags put them together.

Robot makers quickly found out doing things like putting a bolt into a hole
is tricky, if you are the slightest bit off it catches.  Human hands have a
bit of 'give' and you can wiggle the bolt until it aligns, the CNC
equivalent is to have the gripper spring-loaded or mounted in soft rubber so
it can move a bit too.  

That trick probably won't work with PCB drilling as you'd snap the bits.

Then there's things like Vix bits, or even Philips head screws, that's one
of the reasons they were invented.  You can poke the driver in the general
direction of the screw and it'll eventually catch, that doesn't happen with
other types.  The driver also pops out of the screw when the correct torque
is reached - that's a feature, not a bug!  Robots like Philips head screws.

Tony



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