<html>
<head>
<meta content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" http-equiv="Content-Type">
</head>
<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
<font face="Comic Sans MS">We live in amazing times! You can
assemble a CNC machine for light duty cutting like a tinker toy!<br>
That is a good article with some nice links. I've known about
the aluminum extruded rails for a while, but never played with
them.<br>
<br>
Martin wrote on 1/1/2016 2:45 PM:
<blockquote type="cite">
<div dir="ltr">
<div>I've never heard of DIY plated-through holes.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
Of possible interest - <a
href="http://hackaday.com/2015/12/30/sourcing-your-cnc-tools-in-2016-buy-them/"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://hackaday.com/2015/12/30/sourcing-your-cnc-tools-in-2016-buy-them/">http://hackaday.com/2015/12/30/sourcing-your-cnc-tools-in-2016-buy-them/</a></a>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>
<div>Martin W6MRR</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="gmail_extra"><br>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, Jan 1, 2016 at 6:44 AM, Rob
Seastrom <span dir="ltr"><<a
href="mailto:rs@seastrom.com" target="_blank"><a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:rs@seastrom.com">rs@seastrom.com</a></a>></span>
wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0
.8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><br>
EDM sounds awfully interesting. That might be just
because I<br>
generally find the DIY EDM machines to be pretty
fascinating. I don't<br>
know how fine a scale they work well at though - will they
cut pads<br>
for the smaller SMT stuff? I generally think of EDM in
terms of stuff<br>
where the tolerances are 0.005" or so (an artifact of me
looking at<br>
cheapie EDM machines I think), which is fine for a whole
lot of stuff.<br>
But when dealing with a 0.4 mm pitch QFP (i.e. leads on
0.015"<br>
centers) you might wish for better. I believe the limits
of the<br>
*technology* are much better than that, but how much money
do you have<br>
to spend to get there? You still have to position it.<br>
<br>
In other words, I solicit your expertise on the limits of
the<br>
mechanical stuff and what it's practical to do on a
homemade/hobbyist<br>
basis :-)<br>
<span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><br>
-r<br>
</font></span><br>
PS: Anyone ever done plated-through holes on homemade
PCBs? That's<br>
always been the trump card in my arguments for sending
stuff out to a<br>
service bureau.<br>
<div class="HOEnZb">
<div class="h5"><br>
<br>
William Danielson <<a
href="mailto:anviljenkins@gmail.com"><a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:anviljenkins@gmail.com">anviljenkins@gmail.com</a></a>>
writes:<br>
<br>
> The EDM process might work. Those that knew all
about it said the<br>
> discharge coaxed molecules to leave the base
material and head towards<br>
> the electrode.....it works quite well, not sure
if anybody ever EDM<br>
> PCB or not ??<br>
><br>
> Bill<br>
><br>
> On 12/31/2015 02:37 PM, Terry N4TLF wrote:<br>
>> Hey Alberto,<br>
>> From what I read, it would take a decent
amount of power in the<br>
>> laser to cut through metal. I haven't seen
any (affordable) solid<br>
>> state lasers that are okay to cut metal. Of
course, cutting the<br>
>> thinner layer of copper on a circuit board is
simpler than cutting<br>
>> other metal, so I guess that it's possible.
That would be much<br>
>> better than using a heavy router &
mechanical parts at tight<br>
>> tolerances.<br>
>><br>
>> There is also a concern about fumes from
melting the metal and<br>
>> potentially the fiberglass. I plan to do
this in my garage in any<br>
>> event (with plenty of airflow), not in the
house.<br>
>><br>
>> However, the consensus here seems to be that
it's a bad idea. I may<br>
>> wait a little while to see how things
progress in 2016.<br>
>><br>
>> BTW, I was able to move partitions around
with the program that you<br>
>> suggested, and this machine is now also on
Windows 10. Thanks again!<br>
>> 73, Terry, N4TLF<br>
>><br>
>><br>
>> -----Original Message----- From: Alberto di
Bene<br>
>> Sent: Thursday, December 31, 2015 2:00 PM<br>
>> To: <a href="mailto:tacos@amrad.org">tacos@amrad.org</a><br>
>> Subject: Re: PC board milling?<br>
>><br>
>> What about putting a well focused laser diode
of a few W in place of<br>
>> the pen on a paper plotter ?<br>
>> The pen-up and pen-down should be translated
into OFF/ON command for<br>
>> the diode, but apart<br>
>> from this, I don't see any other major
changes... of course the<br>
>> laser diode will just engrave the<br>
>> isolation lines between the tracks, it would
be impractical to<br>
>> vaporize big areas of copper .<br>
>><br>
>> Did anybody try this ?<br>
>><br>
>> 73 Alberto I2PHD<br>
>><br>
>><br>
>>
_______________________________________________<br>
>> Tacos mailing list<br>
>> <a href="mailto:Tacos@amrad.org">Tacos@amrad.org</a><br>
>> <a
href="https://lists.amrad.org/mailman/listinfo/tacos"
rel="noreferrer" target="_blank"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://lists.amrad.org/mailman/listinfo/tacos">https://lists.amrad.org/mailman/listinfo/tacos</a></a><br>
>>
_______________________________________________<br>
>> Tacos mailing list<br>
>> <a href="mailto:Tacos@amrad.org">Tacos@amrad.org</a><br>
>> <a
href="https://lists.amrad.org/mailman/listinfo/tacos"
rel="noreferrer" target="_blank"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://lists.amrad.org/mailman/listinfo/tacos">https://lists.amrad.org/mailman/listinfo/tacos</a></a><br>
><br>
> _______________________________________________<br>
> Tacos mailing list<br>
> <a href="mailto:Tacos@amrad.org">Tacos@amrad.org</a><br>
> <a
href="https://lists.amrad.org/mailman/listinfo/tacos"
rel="noreferrer" target="_blank"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://lists.amrad.org/mailman/listinfo/tacos">https://lists.amrad.org/mailman/listinfo/tacos</a></a><br>
_______________________________________________<br>
Tacos mailing list<br>
<a href="mailto:Tacos@amrad.org">Tacos@amrad.org</a><br>
<a
href="https://lists.amrad.org/mailman/listinfo/tacos"
rel="noreferrer" target="_blank"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://lists.amrad.org/mailman/listinfo/tacos">https://lists.amrad.org/mailman/listinfo/tacos</a></a><br>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
</div>
<br>
</div>
<br>
<fieldset class="mimeAttachmentHeader"></fieldset>
<br>
<pre wrap="">_______________________________________________
Tacos mailing list
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:Tacos@amrad.org">Tacos@amrad.org</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://lists.amrad.org/mailman/listinfo/tacos">https://lists.amrad.org/mailman/listinfo/tacos</a>
</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
<br>
</font>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
No electrons were harmed in the creation of this message
--------------------------------------------------------
~~~******************* Alex Fraser *******************~~~
--------------------------------------------------------
[[[[[[~~^^^#___=>>>```/\/\**O**/\/\```<<<=___#^^^~~]]]]]]
</pre>
</body>
</html>