Wendy and CNC Builders... Question on PCBs

[Buddym]

I direct the post towards all, but I saw that Wendy had displayed a nice PCB for her build in a previous post.


Have you used your cnc for making PCBs? I ran a test using Eagle and a freeware conversion to take the pcb to g-code using the isolation-routing method. I had the depth set wrong on my first test, but the first trial results were VERY encouraging. I was curious to see if anyone had made any circuit boards for things like EFIS, FCU, etc....?

Thanks,
BuddyM
A320 Builder
Tampa,Fl US

[Wendy]

Hey Buddym,

The PCB I showed you was a rather simple one which I made in a normal cad-drawing as part of my panel design. Until now I have not made PCB's designed in Eagle on the CNC.

Regards, Wendy

[Redbird]

I've been pondering the very same thing. I'm about half done building a CNC and am thinking about making my own open cockpit cards. Shipping costs about the same as cards lol and the gerber files are freely available

[Buddym]

I made a couple of very decent first-attempts, but then I found a company to make my boards at such a low price it's not worth the wear on my machine, or the price of blank PCB material.

[Redbird]

Care to share the company name

[Buddym]

no problem, it's accutrace (pcb4u.com). They have a deal where you can get 10 boards (2 layers) that are up to 20 sq inches each, for $10 each, plus $10 shipping. Boards up to 40 sq inches are $15 each. It's a great deal, no tooling charges, and no gotchas. The only real gotcha is that you have to order 10 identical boards. The deal loses it's appeal quickly when you look at only doing 1 or 2 boards. Also, for that price I am sure that there's not a great deal of design review, so make sure you have the board perfect before sending the files!!

I bought single-sided copper-clad at $3 each for 6x6 inch boards.... by the time I ruined 2 of them getting the CNC setup correctly, and broke 2 bits, it just makes more sense to me to buy the OC cards from them, and only send my production boards, like the IP-8, out to be made. I think If I needed smaller boards and no double-sided ones that I would keep doing it, but at this point buying the OC cards made more sense for me.

Buddy

[Perik]

Hello Redbird.

I have made (milled) most of my OC-board myself including:
MasterCard, Display-II, Servo, Stepper/DC-motor and Encoder-II.
And a lot of other and more specific PCB's for my B767.
Have a few images on my web-page: http://www.hoddo.net/ocboard.html

To be able to make PCB's in a clean and low-cost way was for me very import part
of my own CNC project and I do whatever to keep the cost down!!
At the same time have fun, learn and master new techniques and keep the brain "spinning".

If you don't have a loaded bank account, the CNC unit is the best investment you ever can do!!

[Buddym]

Hey Perik, nice work...those are some great looking boards. Did you use the isolation routing method on those?

Buddy

[Perik]

Thanks, Buddy

Yes, isolation all the way (60 degrees V-cutter).
I have a small section where I try to describe the PCB milling
in a little bit more detail: http://www.hoddo.net/technical.html#pcb

At the bottom line you need to try and you'll really fast catch the limits
of the machine if any. My homemade CNC rig is NOT rocket science for sure
and PCB's are really achievable.
You may need some software though - like Eagle and Diptrace.
It all depends of how complicated PCB's you want to make.
You can do a lot with just a drawing tool.

Happy milling and go for it.

[BABA767]

Hi Erik,great work!!!...I follow closely your progress; very nice your MIP!!cheers, Valerio