Re: Direct Printing Etch Resist - tractor feed of pcbs
2004-04-28 by Richard Mustakos
Roy
I remember seeing a setup (I don't remember what it was feeding, but
it was flat plates of some kind)
where the plates (pcbs for us) had 2 plastic strips connected across all
of them. The strips had the
appropriate holes for the old tractor feed mechanism. The strips were
folded between boards so that it
stacked and feed like paper - except it did not bend in the middle. The
proof of concept is out there.
The question is where to get the plastic stripping. Vivisimo.com search
for "tractor feed carrier" came
back with:
http://www.vernlib.com/sealtra.asp
They sell something that might work. Tape strips, 3.125" by 1296" (108'
should last a little while), 2.5"
center to center on the tractor feed holes. Chop it in two, put it on
the sides. I'm guessing alignment would
be an issue unless you made some kind of a gig for aligning each board
to the last. It would probably be
either capital or labor intensive.
Richard
I remember seeing a setup (I don't remember what it was feeding, but
it was flat plates of some kind)
where the plates (pcbs for us) had 2 plastic strips connected across all
of them. The strips had the
appropriate holes for the old tractor feed mechanism. The strips were
folded between boards so that it
stacked and feed like paper - except it did not bend in the middle. The
proof of concept is out there.
The question is where to get the plastic stripping. Vivisimo.com search
for "tractor feed carrier" came
back with:
http://www.vernlib.com/sealtra.asp
They sell something that might work. Tape strips, 3.125" by 1296" (108'
should last a little while), 2.5"
center to center on the tractor feed holes. Chop it in two, put it on
the sides. I'm guessing alignment would
be an issue unless you made some kind of a gig for aligning each board
to the last. It would probably be
either capital or labor intensive.
Richard
Show quoted textHide quoted text
> From: "Roy J. Tellason" <rtellason@...>
>Subject: Re: Direct Printing Etch Resist (was Re: Standard inkjet inks for etch resist?)
><snip>
>Now I'm wondering if it's possible to use hardware designed to handle fanfold
>paper to deal with boards. :-) I sure have enough of that sort of hardware
>around, from scrapping printers out, and adapting this to work would give
>you one axis of a CNC setup. Maybe some sort of a "carrier" would work?
>
>
>