Homebrew_PCBs

John,
I too looked at your site, very interesting. We ran a 1/4-20 stepper drive shaft with low cost bearings in our lab for years. It became obsolete way before we had mechanical problems, and was a whole lot less money and faster to build than the ACME thread approach. We figured if it broke down, we could fix it with hardware store parts, rather than pay $$$$ for overnight shipping. We kept spare steppers, and controllers in a cabinet under the testing bay, and never used any of them. Simple is key.

Group,
What do people use for software to run a homebrew pcb milling machine? I used to have a LPKF in the lab, but the software for it was so poor, we ended up going back to outsourcing prototypes. This was about 10 years ago, so I'm sure a lot has changed.

Most everything I've seen deals with regular G code etc, which is fine for model making, but I've been unable to find a program that would ideally take gerber or excellon to a motor controller, or at a minimum convert gerber/excellon to gcode. Although I can generate dxf from my pcb program, I'd rather create the protos off of gerber to minimize any problems. I've had it happen where in the photo method (2X or 4X laser print photographically reduced to 1X to a negative) creates a great prototype board, yet the gerber when sent out to a board house created some real headaches.

Thanks
Ron

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> Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2003 02:32:46 -0500
> From: "Ron Amundson" <ron_amundson@...>
>Subject: Re: Re: cnc pcb engraver software?


>What do people use for software to run a homebrew pcb milling machine? I
>used to have a LPKF in the lab, but the software for it was so poor, we
>ended up going back to outsourcing prototypes. This was about 10 years
>ago, so I'm sure a lot has changed.
>
>Most everything I've seen deals with regular G code etc, which is fine for
>model making, but I've been unable to find a program that would ideally
>take gerber or excellon to a motor controller, or at a minimum convert
>gerber/excellon to gcode. Although I can generate dxf from my pcb program,
>I'd rather create the protos off of gerber to minimize any problems.

Ron, for Gerber/Excellon to G-code or DXF $100

http://www.imsrv.com/deskpcb

For same, plus serial port machine controller (step and direction), DXF pocketing, contouring,
drilling, 3D stl file machining, raster to vector, engraving and more $300:

http://www.imsrv.com/deskcnc

Best Regards,

Fred Smith
IMService

> yet the gerber when sent out to a board house created some real headaches.

The board house does not use the gerber file to drill your boards. In the
package, I suspect you sent them an excellon or NC drill file. This file can
be opened with a text editor like notepad and can be edited if it is not
correct. One would need to have an understanding of the excellon output to
do this.
-Mike

For more on the software side, you could try the CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO
group or USERS_BobCad_com group.

The board house does not use the gerber file to drill your boards. In the
package, I suspect you sent them an excellon or NC drill file. This file can
be opened with a text editor like notepad and can be edited if it is not
correct. One would need to have an understanding of the excellon output to
do this.
-Mike

Actually the problem I had was more related to the pcb program creating wierd aperatures. Never had issues with Excellon files, but the dragging aperatures have created problems in the past.

I never modify gerber or excellon, as it makes it pretty much impossible to backtrack through the design system. My only real need for gerber editing is multiup issues and fiducials. One of my guys used to go in a twiddle gerber, but after blowing $5000 on a small production run, we stopped that. In hindsight, it was coupled with the fact that we stopped inspecting films prior to release in order to save time. At least today, the tools are good enough that I've never needed to go back and inspect films and rely on the second party gerber tool for verification.

Thanks for all the good links, looks like I've got some research to do.
Ron


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