PC board milling?

[Rob Seastrom]

EDM sounds awfully interesting.  That might be just because I
generally find the DIY EDM machines to be pretty fascinating.  I don't
know how fine a scale they work well at though - will they cut pads
for the smaller SMT stuff?  I generally think of EDM in terms of stuff
where the tolerances are 0.005" or so (an artifact of me looking at
cheapie EDM machines I think), which is fine for a whole lot of stuff.
But when dealing with a 0.4 mm pitch QFP (i.e. leads on 0.015"
centers) you might wish for better.  I believe the limits of the
*technology* are much better than that, but how much money do you have
to spend to get there?  You still have to position it.

In other words, I solicit your expertise on the limits of the
mechanical stuff and what it's practical to do on a homemade/hobbyist
basis :-)

-r

PS: Anyone ever done plated-through holes on homemade PCBs?  That's
always been the trump card in my arguments for sending stuff out to a
service bureau.


William Danielson <anviljenkins at gmail.com> writes:

> The EDM process might work. Those that knew all about it said the
> discharge coaxed molecules to leave the base material and head towards
> the electrode.....it works quite well, not sure if anybody ever EDM
> PCB or not ??
>
> Bill
>
> On 12/31/2015 02:37 PM, Terry N4TLF wrote:
>> Hey Alberto,
>> From what I read, it would take a decent amount of power in the
>> laser to cut through metal.  I haven't seen any (affordable) solid
>> state lasers that are okay to cut metal.  Of course, cutting the
>> thinner layer of copper on a circuit board is simpler than cutting
>> other metal, so I guess that it's possible.  That would be much
>> better than using a heavy router & mechanical parts at tight
>> tolerances.
>>
>> There is also a concern about fumes from melting the metal and
>> potentially the fiberglass.  I plan to do this in my garage in any
>> event (with plenty of airflow), not in the house.
>>
>> However, the consensus here seems to be that it's a bad idea.  I may
>> wait a little while to see how things progress in 2016.
>>
>> BTW, I was able to move partitions around with the program that you
>> suggested, and this machine is now also on Windows 10.  Thanks again!
>> 73, Terry, N4TLF
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message----- From: Alberto di Bene
>> Sent: Thursday, December 31, 2015 2:00 PM
>> To: tacos at amrad.org
>> Subject: Re: PC board milling?
>>
>> What about putting a well focused laser diode of a few W in place of
>> the pen on a paper plotter ?
>> The pen-up and pen-down should be translated into OFF/ON command for
>> the diode, but apart
>> from this, I don't see any other major changes...   of course the
>> laser diode will just engrave the
>> isolation lines between the tracks, it would be impractical to
>> vaporize big areas of copper  .
>>
>> Did anybody try this ?
>>
>> 73  Alberto  I2PHD
>>
>>
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