Homebrew PCBs

Hi John, 

Yes, I can see that you've spent a lot of time and energy designing your
boards and mills.  And writing manuals and preparing plans for projects
also takes considerable effort!  Hopefully you will get to a point where
you CAN make a reasonable profit.  

If your customers want something (and will pay for it), then you should
have a market.  I do see a lot more boards and other CNC products
available then when I started.  

I have several unipolar drivers, don't get me wrong.  And for the
experimenter on a tight budget, they DO offer an advantage over the more
costly "modules".  You're correct, high rapid's and feeds are not needed
by a hobbyist!  Plus, unipolar drivers have the advantage that you are
less likely to "fry" them while you're learning!  And it's FUN to see
what you can do with as little as possible!  Anyone can lay out $5K or
whatever and buy a turnkey package.  But to build and get it running
yourself, that's another story.

I currently have my Sherline set up for CNC milling (my PCB router is
not finished yet), so I think your board is a little too big for it. 
I'll have to consider this a "paper" exercise, until such time as I can
cut the board.  As I've said, I'm more interested in technique and some
"real" examples to compare to my Gerber/Gcode efforts.  Knowing what
you've done on your board would help me to get my process (and program)
tested out.  Thanks for the kind offer!

Alan  KM6VV


crankorgan wrote:
> 
> Hi Alan,
>         I sell 4 axis unipolar controllers. They are heavy duty. I
> kept getting asked to make a Bipolar board. So I added a L298 to my
> design. A simple cheap board for experimentors. What it comes down to
> is they save $10 buying my board while I loose hundreds designing and
> debugging it. What I find is people are unable to find anything on
> the internet. Maybe they use the wrong search engine. I was told when
> people ask for something, make it avalible. I should have bought a
> batch of Dan's boards and resold them! Now that a Business!
>       There are several people besides myself who sell unipolar
> driver boards. A first mill only needs 12" per minute. A Dremel can
> only handle 8" per minute with a 1/8" bit. Going 20" per minute with
> a bed that is only 6" X 6" is insane for a beginner. Cheap unipolar
> drivers can run cheap motors at 20" per minute. I myself only work at
> 6" per minute. But because my GCodes are very efficent, effectively I
> am milling faster.
>        Mill a Tit 4 Tat and I will send you the instruction booklet
> via Email. There is a photo of the board under How to Mill Circuit
> boards.
> 
>                                     John