PC board milling?

[Martin]

I've never heard of DIY plated-through holes.

Of possible interest -
http://hackaday.com/2015/12/30/sourcing-your-cnc-tools-in-2016-buy-them/

Martin W6MRR

On Fri, Jan 1, 2016 at 6:44 AM, Rob Seastrom <rs at seastrom.com> wrote:

>
> 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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