Re: Help: PCB Trace Milling Software

--- In CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO@egroups.com, Alan Marconett KM6VV <KM6VV@a...>
wrote:

> Ballendo and the List,
>
> I hadn't thought about CorelTRACE. I'll see what I can do with

it. And

> thanks to all those who posted websites or references for milling

PCB

> traces! That's great! ZTRACE, EAGLE and Deskam2000 look very
> promising!
>
> Although it might be fun to program it too!
>
> And Mike, if you're the first to get PCB's going, DO give us a

report!

> With all the new Ideas I see, it will be a while before I start on

it.

>
> Alan Great list!
>

Corel Trace is a pretty good bitmap to vector translation tool. It
has several modes that give varying degrees of accuracy. Problem is
with the real accurate mode all the imperfections of the bitmap get
turned into curves (thousands of them). If you have Corel Draw you
can take the traced vector image and edit the node points forcing
things back to straight lines....you will still have to remove
extraneous nodes. It's easy to do by going into node edit mode and
dragging a window around nodes and right click to get a menu or just
hit the delete key. I scanned a drawing from a book, did a trace and
then spent about two hours smoothing things up. Once it was
vectorized (new word) I stretched it to about 24" square and then
took it to a DXF export. From there it got turned to g-code with
cutpath info. Wish my torch table was finished so I could cut it out!

>
> ballendo@y... wrote:
> >
> > Alan,
> >
> > You can do simple to medium boards with a raster to vector

converter

> > like CorelTRACE. Just import the Pcb image and "trace" it (on

another

> > layer).Be sure to clean it up, and remember to run as fast as you

can

> > (spindle AND feedrate) BEWARE of tiny, CONDUCTIVE copper "slivers"
> > with this method. (More likely at slow spindle speeds and

feedrates.)

> >
> > In the last two days I posted a couple of commercial solutions,

but

> > for a lot of stuff the above works.
> >
> > Think and tinker(on the web) has the cutting bits to do a good

job.

> >
> > In days of old, photo plotters used for pc bd's actually had

cutouts

> > in a sheet of material to define the apertures. These were rotated
> > into position(like a viewmaster toy, or a turret punch), and a

light

> > source flashed on or off as necessary. Lines(traces) were made by
> > moving the board under the aperture(while the light was on).
> >
> > Nowadays, the apertures are digitally created "virtually" from an
> > "aperture list" of instructions/definitions, usually in the

header of

> > the file. And lasers do the "plotting".
> >
> > Gerber used to put out a book of specs. for the RS-274X code. For
> > anybody who doesn't already know, Gerber Scientific, as one of the
> > main players in the CNC world early on, co-opted the gcode spec.

and

> > called it gerber(for both their routers and photo plotters). So
> > "Gerber" files are just ANOTHER couple of flavors of Gcode.
> >
> > Hope this helps.
> >
> > Ballendo
> >