PCB Mill training

Continuing the discussion from North Workshop Reorg:

Moving this to its own thread.

Note: This is ONLY for the PCB training. Shapeoko should be a different thread.

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Can it only do circuit boards? Could it cut a design in copper for jewelry? Only straight lines?

It’s capable of doing complex designs. I’m not familiar with this particular mill but have used PCB mills in the past. They’re designed to cut thin copper…likely thinner than what you have in mind for jewelry but with with a slower feed rate should be able to handle it. For thicker material the Emco mill would have no problem with it.

It sounds like I need to talk to folks in the tool shop? and find out the capabilities of things. Jewelry folks still rely on a lot of hand tools or want is basically a motorized version of them.

I need to go hit the scrap yards for more copper sheet, soon.

I used the PCB mill last week as basically a motorized hand tool using the jog to cut out some boards after etching. Much better result than shears or a handsaw and easy to do.

Care to demo for a group of us some night? I will bring some stock and a set of Gerbers.

I was hoping to have someone do the same thing. I just used the manual jog and didn’t import files. I tried to do that before but had issues with file types. Didn’t spend any time trouble shooting since I was in a hurry so it might be a trivial issue.

Agreed with ChadB, the PCB mill has tooling meant to cut thin copper (1-2oz per ft^2) and also shallowly into the underlying fiberglass substrate.

Your project sounds like a great application for the Emco, however. I think copper can be “gummy” like aluminum, so some research is warranted.

Will there be another demo any time in the near future?

It’s out of commission since someone stripped it of parts. It’ll be a while before it’s up and running again.

That’s the sort of thing that makes me think the Facebook “emotion” thing isn’t a terrible idea… I need a :frowning: button. Are we still down the parts?

We have had some donated parts but they are mismatched. 3-D printing just donated a printer that we can use parts from. I think it was @wandrson’s reprap?

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Yeh, it was a reprap I built so I could learn how to keep the Printrbot Metal Simple functioning for more then a week at a time… :frowning:

It had four matched steppers, which should also match two of the three steppers I donated to the pcb mill rebuild. As I recall it had a standard reprap controller board as well. Don’t know if that is useful for the pcb mill build though. The power supply was a standard chinese 12V, 10-20?A switching unit.

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The last time I glanced over at it (about a week or so ago…), it was still a skeleton of its former self…

I’m not sure what the current plans for it are. It’s kept in the Electronics Room now, under their domain, so I’ve moved this thread to the Electronics category to make it easier to find for others who may be looking for an update on it as well.

Edit: I type too slow on this phone… Answers came in as I was trying to type this out. :slight_smile:

I’m still up for donating some money to get this fixed, as well as a kinda build day for it.

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Did our fancy video system catch the offense? Why hasn’t the guilty party been brought to justice?

We were unable to see well in the corner where the bone picking occurred.

We can see you now! :video_camera:

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There were issues w/ camera. And of coarse we found out when we needed it. Problems have been fixed and second camera is on Brooks to do list…Thanks Brooks!

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You can use Marlin for PCB milling, and even use auto-Z leveling to make sure the PCB is milling properly.

Honestly, photo-resist etching is the way to go. Great quality and some really good results down to .008" trace/space. The trick is to do a one-sided board, SMT on one side, thru-hole on the other, and jumpers where needed. Works like a champ, and a lot less work (IMO).