Re: DRO BOARDS ARE IN

Amen, Amen on "or a prototype (pcb board) which will be hacked on until it
works" :)
I have been making my own pc boards for about 6 years now. I have tried all
the other methods and still like the presensitized postive method for
making printed circuit boards. However it is hard to get rid of the
chemicals for ethching in an enviormentaly correct manner. Therefore, I have
been playing with routing the traces. Bill Wainright has made some beautiful
routed boards .. The problem is that the software that will read gerber
files or other types of files and generates the G code is expensive.. Z
trace is the lowest costing software that I know of that will do that and it
cost $300. One thing of interest is that Protels 98 will alow you to draw
your circuit and then using the tools automatically creates the ouline.
This is saved as a dxf file for each layer. Then it is loaded into camex
where it is given the depth information and creates the optimized G code.
Myself I would like to switch to routing the traces because there are no
chemicals to mess with.
I have made a holder for a dremel pro mototool. that clamps onto the mill's
quill. That way I can get the RPM's up where you need them at about 25,000
RPM.
I have also tried scanning the artwork made from my electronics cad program
and then using a raster to vector converter. That worked but needed alot of
touching up.
So I am still hunting for an easy way to mill the traces.
Dan
-----Original Message-----
From: Jon Elson <jmelson@...>
To: CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO@onelist.com <CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO@onelist.com>
Date: Wednesday, June 30, 1999 11:22 PM
Subject: Re: [CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO] DRO BOARDS ARE IN

>From: Jon Elson <jmelson@...>
>
>
>
>TADGUNINC@... wrote:
>
>> From: TADGUNINC@...
>>
>> I have a question for you guys working with the PC boards, are they

etched or

>> routed? With the cnc's that that Jon, Bill, Dan, etc. have running would
>> think an inexpensive way to produce them would be the routing

method...Just a

>> thought
>
>Well, actually, this is very slow and eats up expensive carbide bits. I

have the

>capability, but I much prefer etching, for boards I make myself. It is

much more

>like making a photocopy, where all the complexity of the board is done
>simultaneously.
>
>But, for anything over a few, a professionally made, through-hole plated

board,

>with gold-plated card edge connectors, solder reflowed pads, solder mask

and

>silk screened legend is much superior to what I do myself.
>
>On the other hand, for a one-off, or an 'I need it today' job, or a

prototype which

>will be hacked on until it works, a homemade board costs me very little but

time.

>
>Jon
>
>
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