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I found one CNC pen plotter for PCB
etching the guy reckoned cost less than $30! Used old floppy drive
actuators!
My memory of PCB making was precise hole drilling was quite
important so automating that should help. Gordon mentioned
registration for double sided stuff but that shouldnt be too hard
to work out...
Tom te tom te tom
On 19/07/16 20:16, M. J. Everitt wrote:
If you want to go nuts, you can buy a desktop CNC mill (think 3D
printer with a milling head) for Â2-4k ...
MJE
On 19/07/16 20:12, Tom wrote:
On 19/07/16 17:57, Gordon Henderson
wrote:
On Tue, 19 Jul 2016, Tom wrote:
I think this is quite interesting!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLQajSRnELc
I've seen CNC routers make PCBs before - they mostly work out
OK. Registration for double-sided is hard though, and
of-course you get the board in the same state as if you had
etched it yourself - no solder mask, silkscreen, etc.
But as others have said, there is a plethora of small
companies who'll make your board now - and most are more
professional than you can imagine. I did my little ladder
board for the Pi 4 years ago now as a bit of an experiment to
see how far the technology had come - it had been 25 years
since I last made a PCB using a drawing package on the Apple
II and printing then photocopying onto acetate then using
photo resist...
I used Fritzing for the layout and a UK prototyping company
for the first boards, then a UK company who did all the
Chinese interfacing when I wanted 600 of them made.
I used http://www.pcbpanel.co.uk/Home.html
for the prototypes - actually quite expensive, but I got 6 Pi
sized PCBs for under Â100 with a 5-day turnaround, then used:
http://www.quick-teck.co.uk/index.php
when I wanted batches of 300 boards made.
So there are plenty of options these days.
The setup costs are the biggest part - so for small runs
you're going to pay almost as much for larger runs unless you
use a service that batches up lots of small designs them runs
them all at once... (I think pcb train does this), but they
can take a few weeks.
I know a few people using Ragworm http://ragworm.eu/
now - might use them myself for my next project too...
I do think it's very worth it now to get your own PCB made for
you - even if it's just a one-off project - if nothing else to
impress :-)
Cheers,
Gordon
I was really considering this for a teaching exercise - with
all this RaspberryPi and micro:bit etc going on as an ex
microchip designer I'd like to help teach IT and electronics.
It looks like there is a bootstrapping possibility here - OK
solder doesn't smell right anymore but you can probably go
from RaspberryPi and a small bath of etchant to a full blown
PCB production on a bootstrapped cnc plotter/cutter. The
learning process would result in seriously useful tangible
things! Ragworm are Â40 (+pp) for a one off that should be
around Â3 or Â4 if you have a school/club with a reasonable
stock order of PCB blanks,
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