PCBs

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alband

Senior Member
Just to add my 2 cents to this money related thread:

and they quote it costed 50 pounds for the boards................absolute madness i think!!!!!
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My whole set-up is less than that. I go the UV, photoresist board route. The key is my UV box:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/9W-36W-UV-CURING-LAMP-LIGHT-NAIL-DRYER-RED-WHITE-PINK-/270802944277?pt=UK_Health_Beauty_Nails_Manicure_Pedicure_CA&var=&hash=item84b85f0f6d

Not exactly your standard kit. I used the one back right, but I imagine the front ones would let you do bigger boards (a problem I now have).

There's a thread all about it for those interested (very long as per most of my threads, so skip to last page). As Dippy points out on that page, it is certainly the cheap route. If I could afford better, I might go for it, but I wouldn't concider the method to be limmiting, only my skill in using it. I can currently achieve sub-mm tracks out of it with very low per-board cost.http://www.picaxeforum.co.uk/showthread.php?12423-UV-lightbox-cheap-equivalents/page26

Attached some recent examples, and they had A LOT going against them (mostly, storing the photoboard in sunlight for a year or so).

Cheers,
David.
 

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Buzby

Buzby

Senior Member
Hi All,

I've seen plenty of your examples of home made boards, and I think it's great what a hobbyist can do.

But how many of you could make me a board like this : http://www.doghouse.talktalk.net/mpx.png ?

This board will cost me about £30, with about another £150 for the components.

I will maybe build a project like this once a year, so the cost of the PCB is not much of an outlay spread over that time.

With a nod to the assembler thread going on, you don't have to do your own PCB fabrication in order to be a good PCB designer, but it does help if you know what the process entails.

If I want to pay for my PCB then that's my choice, and I resent my actions being called madness.

( My wife doesn't catch fish from the lake, she buys them from the market. Does that sound like madness ?. )

You can discuss all you want amongst yourselves about the pro's and con's of different PCB fabrication methods, but don't knock us that are not interested in it.

Cheers,

Buzby
 
D

Dippy

Moderator
Ah, this where we can all come a cropper generalising.

Don't get too upset Buzby. For a board of that complexity I , too, would go to a proper manufacturer.
I put a value on my time, ability and sanity.
Maybe people assumed it was the usual AXEr 3 resistors and an 08M ;)
People just have to work out what is 'best' for their board.
Horses for Courses. Good luck with all your PCBs. No doubt we'll be back here soon.
 
marzan

marzan

Senior Member
Can I add my 2 cents to this thread? I use a gantry mill to do my boards.
DIY milling machines are cheap to build, especially small ones. there are hundreds of designs on the net.You can even make a machine out of MDF.

Most people use a dremel or equivalent to drill the holes, so that is a major expense that you already own. Having a mounted drill means you save on drill bits seeing they don`t break as often as when you drill by hand

There are dozens of cheap controller boards that you can hook up stepper motors to. All you need is an old computer with a printer/parrallel port and some cheap software.there are so many circuit programs now that have interfaces with routing/drilling apps, like eagle to pcb-gcode.

To make pcb`s, you do`nt need a high powered mill as you are only taking off .01mm at a time when milling, or drilling smller than 2.5mm in most cases.

You also know that every board you make will be the same as the first one.

Also, you can go and make a cup of coffee while your machine does all the work !!

So not many processes to get a board cut. You probably use something like Eagle. that has an .ulp called pcb-gcode that converts it to gcode(Duh!) Run it through an optimiser to shorten rapid moves. insert into Mach3 which is the program that runs the mill. You`re ready to drill and mill your board.
 
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booski

Senior Member
marzan said:
Can I add my 2 cents to this thread? I use a gantry mill to do my boards.
DIY milling machines are cheap to build, especially small ones. there are hundreds of designs on the net.You can even make a machine out of MDF.
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I can see a problem there which you've already mentioned.
I myself have been looking into these little DIY milling machines as they are above all else, incredibly cool. However, the problem is the fact that there is, hundreds upon hundreds, of different designs.

Just don't know where to begin with it really!
 
marzan

marzan

Senior Member
booski said:
I can see a problem there which you've already mentioned.
I myself have been looking into these little DIY milling machines as they are above all else, incredibly cool. However, the problem is the fact that there is, hundreds upon hundreds, of different designs.

Just don't know where to begin with it really!
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The first thing you ned to do is decide what type of machine suits you. Each has advantages and disadvantages.
There is a "gantry" type machine which is like an overhead crane in a workshop. This type is more expensive to build because it requires 2 steppers and screws to move the Y axis. This is the type I have built.

there is a type of gantry where the Y axis is created by moving the bed of the machine on linear slides. This is good for a small machine,but you can imagine if it was a huge table you would need twice the ammount of space. This is the type of machime I would have built if it was only to be used for PCB`s.

Lastly, you have what most conventional mills have. the X and Y movement is on the bed of the machine. In my opinion these are harder to build for a hobbyist. but you can buy small XY cross slide setups on ebay.


The beauty of PCB milling is there is not a great deal of force needed to make your board. Also most boards are smallish in size. I would imagine most hobbytists wouldnt make boards bigger than 250mm x 250mm so a gantry mill can be made pretty rigid without a great span accross the table.
 
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SAborn

Senior Member
There is a "gantry" type machine which is like an overhead crane in a workshop. This type is more expensive to build because it requires 2 steppers and screws to move the Y axis. This is the type I have built.
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I disagree that you need 2 steppers for a gantry Y axis, as mine only has one on a lead screw.
The X axis is the bed and that moves forwards and backwards while Y axis moves left and right across the gantry.

The biggest problem is when you make a cnc, there is always 1001 other jobs you find to do with it other than just making circuit boards.

Even with having a cnc i still choose to use photo resist to produce boards as the cost is far cheaper than running the router.
For large batches i will drill the boards with cnc, but small one offs its quicker to drill them in a set up drill press by hand.

The whole thing with making PCB's is it dont need to be hi tech to make them, although it is easier if you have the equipment to be hi tech, but in most cases its a total over kill for the home hobby person.
 
marzan

marzan

Senior Member
SAborn said:
I disagree that you need 2 steppers for a gantry Y axis, as mine only has one on a lead screw.
QUOTE

you are right that you dont need 2 steppers to make a gantry mill axis to work. I have done it because of the very thing you stated in the post. Once you build one you want to do more amd more with it. If you have a fairly wide gantry and really wanrt to push the limits with what you want to mill it its more rigid that way.At least thats my experience after having to change my design fron the original 1 screw setup i had originally.
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mickm2au

Member
I've gone the CNC way also as building my CNC machine was a challenging project to keep the brain cells active. Its probably not the most economical way to go as far as building the rig. The machine and driver board cost me about $150 all up, but I managed to swap a carton of beer for a carton of PCB offcuts a few years ago, which I'll never use up so the running costs are pretty low.

Mick
 

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marzan

marzan

Senior Member
mickm2au said:
I've gone the CNC way also as building my CNC machine was a challenging project to keep the brain cells active.

Mick
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That`s why I built mine as well. Need to be always learning I reckon.Your machine does a good job from the look of your board.The stepper you can see looks like the same one I have found in many old dot matrix printers. They seem to have plenty of power for small pcb mills. I wish I knew people that could get me pcblanks that cheap. Is that a router you are using? I can`t tell.
 
premelec

premelec

Senior Member
I got a lifetime supply of skinny PCB material from manufacturer's cutoff edges [up to 3"] and from a scrap yard - the price of copper is up so probably they'd want money now [was free few decades ago...] - anyhow if you are anywhere near manufacturers it pays to check their scrap [true in my experience for stainless steel fine tubing, magnetic sign stuff and so forth]. Freecycle!
 
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mickm2au

Member
marzan said:
I wish I knew people that could get me pcblanks that cheap. Is that a router you are using? I can`t tell.
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I got my blank board "via" Entech PCB's I'm not sure if they're still around but have a look in Yellow pages. That is a small Bosch router which I managed to find a 1/8" collet for, it has virtually no run out and good bearings which I found was a problem with the Dremell type machines. I'm still looking for a couple or three similar cheap steppers to play with on a bit bigger CNC if you know of a local source.

Mick
 
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matherp

Senior Member
If you are using CNC to make PCBs have a look at planet-cnc.com. The software is an alternative to the usual mach3 and uses dedicated hardware but all reasonably priced. I made up a DIY controller which works well. The beauty of the software is that it will read in standard gerber layout files from DesignSpark or similar and convert them to a isolation routed g-code.

There is a demo version of the software available which is limited in the number of g-code lines it will execute. HOWEVER, it doesn't seem to be limited in converting gerbers so even if you don't use the hardware controller you can just read in a gerber and then save the g-code for use elsewhere at least to try. Obviously if you do use this more often I would suggest you would be honour bound to buy the software.

Best regards

Peter
 
marzan

marzan

Senior Member
mickm2au said:
I'm still looking for a couple or three similar cheap steppers to play with on a bit bigger CNC if you know of a local source.

Mick
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I might have some stored away, I`ll look on the weekend. Had some vexta ones somewhere that were a bit bigger. I started out with little nema 17s that I was told would drive my dovetail drill mill, which were woefully underpowered. Then went to nema23s which are like the ones you have . Finally fitted some nema34s and it hasn`t missed a step since.


mickm2au said:
That is a small Bosch router which I managed to find a 1/8" collet for, it has virtually no run out and good bearings which I found was a problem with the Dremell type machines.

Mick
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A router that takes 1/8 collets? are they ER11 collets?
 
marzan

marzan

Senior Member
matherp said:
If you are using CNC to make PCBs have a look at planet-cnc.com. The software is an alternative to the usual mach3 and uses dedicated hardware but all reasonably priced. I made up a DIY controller which works well. The beauty of the software is that it will read in standard gerber layout files from DesignSpark or similar and convert them to a isolation routed g-code.

There is a demo version of the software available which is limited in the number of g-code lines it will execute. HOWEVER, it doesn't seem to be limited in converting gerbers so even if you don't use the hardware controller you can just read in a gerber and then save the g-code for use elsewhere at least to try. Obviously if you do use this more often I would suggest you would be honour bound to buy the software.

Best regards

Peter
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Had a quick lokk around the site. Looks interesting. Might try the software. I already own Mach3/D2nc but it might be worth the money to convert from gerber files.
 
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matherp

Senior Member
marzan

I used mach3 previously but found that it was increasingly difficult to get smooth stepping as the microsoft bloatware compromised the driver. There are usb interfaces for mach 3 but they are pretty expensive so I gave planet-cnc a go. This has transformed things for me. Stepping is much smoother as the timings are much more even. With mach 3 I had completely failed to get anything based on TB6560 to work well, this driver seems to hate uneven step timing but it worked perfectly with planet-cnc.

The only downside is that the product is less mature and bugs are found occasionally, also the usb communication is sensitive to electrical noise from the spindle motor if the wires run too close but the author seems pretty responsive and the functionality is way past mach 3 including a feature to sense and then compensate for warped PCB stock!

Best regards

Peter
 
marzan

marzan

Senior Member
They must have fixed the timing betweeen windows ->usb. There was an issue with windows not giving usb devices priority and therefore inaccurate timing. Im using the old parralell port method. It would be nice to have all the extra io`s though..
 
marzan

marzan

Senior Member
mickm2au said:
. I'm still looking for a couple or three similar cheap steppers to play with on a bit bigger CNC if you know of a local source.

Mick
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I had a quick look around and found these. Are they what you`re after? they look like they are the same as what you have.

P1010331.jpg
 
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SAborn

Senior Member
Nice mill, but 1.5 kw spindle for routing a pcb is a bit costly, i could live for half a day on the power you would use in an hour of making a pcb.

I will admit my cnc has a 1.5 kw router as a spindle too, and is why i dont use it to make pcb's due to the running cost, and find photo resist 10x cheaper and far more universal.

I do have a spindle that looks the same as yours kicking around under the bench some where, but as yet have not used it.
 
marzan

marzan

Senior Member
SAborn said:
Nice mill, but 1.5 kw spindle for routing a pcb is a bit costly, i could live for half a day on the power you would use in an hour of making a pcb.

I will admit my cnc has a 1.5 kw router as a spindle too, and is why i dont use it to make pcb's due to the running cost, and find photo resist 10x cheaper and far more universal.

I do have a spindle that looks the same as yours kicking around under the bench some where, but as yet have not used it.
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Pcb`s weren`t the first reason for builing the mill. I have a bigger drill mill that I made first. It is great for steel, but for aluminium its pretty slow as the top speed is 1500 rpm. That machine built this one.
I still have a issue with this one with a lack of rigidity when doing Y axis moves, but I`m working on it.
Those spindles only use 1.5KW at peak load. when cutting PCB`s with a v bit it`s drawing less than 1/2A
 
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mickm2au

Member
marzan said:
A router that takes 1/8 collets? are they ER11 collets?
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The 1/8" collet came out of one of a few worn out air grinders a friend gave me to try and make a spindle out of, for which they wern't really suitable, hence the Bosch router was put in service. Although its not exactly the same shape as the original 1/4" Bosch collet, with a bit of tweeking I can get the sword bit within a thou or two of runout. Not knowing anything about collet type numbering I can't tell you if its ER11 or not.
 
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SAborn

Senior Member
I use these adaptors in my router,(link below) but as most routers are 1/4" shaft size, the 6mm adaptor is a little loose and requires the collet nut to be tightened very firmly to work, although the run out is next to nothing with using these adaptors.

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/160571257618?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1438.l2649

If its ER11 collets you want then there is these i had looked at but was unsure if they would work in my router.

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/300553707692?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1438.l2649
 
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CLUELESS1

Senior Member
Looked through this and other posts, but does anybody have a link to Ebay UK etc for a laminator that will do pcb toner transfer well. I have looked at many units but there is little information as to what temperature they work with and thickness to allow ordinary pcb material to go through. Thanks
 
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manuka

Senior Member
pscs: We're Kiwi Patch Board (or similar from Adafruit) style fans down here in NZ,thanks largely to guru Andrew Hornblow.The approach now long stressed here is to first verify & tweak on solderless breadboard,then (& ONLY THEN!) lift over "paint by number" style for a more durable soldered version. The resulting layout these days can be pretty professional (yet versatile), & smaller circuits can even be neatly mounted in a partially gutted switched battery box. Bare strip style ugly wiring veroboard approaches make me cringe!

Historical footnote: Somewhat due to my earlier "hands on" chemistry & physics background, I spent decades instructing in PCB etching & soldering while teaching Polytech/University level electronics (1970s-80s) - most circuitry then was op. amp, 555, discretes, logic based or even valve/tube! This was pre PC so many layouts were via Bishop tapes or -argh!- etch resist pens,with UV lamps used for transfer to photo resist clad board.

Although for bulk etching Hydrochloric acid & Hydrogen Peroxide was the technician's brew of choice, students used Ferric Chloride. This is very corrosive - stainless steel sinks & fittings were ruined as a result- and the dirty brown solution makes etching progress hard to follow. (We eventually went with APS =Ammonium persulphate, which is transparent before etching and only colours blue during the etching process).

Learner PCB quality was often initially sadly sub par,and tweaks -even with such nifty PC programs as Wintek's smArtWork- a chore. Expensive waste & expense abounded -numerous PCBs ended up in the bin. A workmate once reflected that we were teaching more about chemistry (& time wasting frustration!) than electronics... A perceptual issue arose too, as learners may find it difficult visualising tracking under the board,especially when relating it to the schematic. Material, facility,& time constraints often further hindered student "it works" satisfaction.

With Health & Safety awareness heightening,the arrival of solderless breadboards in the late 1970s became a significant time for the institution to focus learners towards solderless approaches,along with PCB design using PC packages. Skilled technicians then usually efficiently & consistently made the eventual PCBs,or -for big runs- we even ordered them in bulk from China.

I could post for pages on this topic,but suffice to say learners now can achieve more in a few hours than may otherwise need a few days with PCB/soldering prototypes.

Stan. (40+ years in e-education)
 

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CLUELESS1

Senior Member
Any current UK input on Laminators for Toner Transfer method. Looking for currently available suitable laminator to take PCB material. Thanks
 
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SAborn

Senior Member
Do a google search!

There is several sites that tell you how to mod a laminator with what parts to change and which laminators to use.

Whats wrong with Mums clothes iron, it works well for small number production.
 
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CLUELESS1

Senior Member
Thanks SAborn, I have googled around for some time, and come accross many articles on types/mods, but old posts and laminator models no longer current or in US.

I did try an iron, (wife's when she was out!) but could not turn steam off, also a laminator looks a more consistant method when it works.
 
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CLUELESS1

Senior Member
Many thanks Dave, I did see that on my travels but did not locate a seller, but just found it on Ebay. Quite expensive though. 70/80 pounds.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_nkw=apache al13p&clk_rvr_id=676638306505&adpos=1o1&MT_ID=11&crlp=24078612645_2113181&device=c&geo_id=32251&keyword=apache+al13p&crdt=0

Lots of people I came accross said buy any cheap one as they all will work, but then read specs to find small apertures, too small for PCB's. Maybe there is no cheap fix? Maybe will have to bite the bullet when the wife's not looking?
Will keeep looking
 
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tony_g

Senior Member
i use a scotch TL901 laminator, it was cheap and there was a resistor mod to do to it to slightly up the heat on 5 mil setting, i can pass 0.60" copper clad through it with no slippage.

i also use the pcbfx green trf foil, a noticable improvement when etching boards, worth the pennies lol
 
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CLUELESS1

Senior Member
Thanks Tony, I came accross that device earlier, it appears mainly from Ebay USA sites, many not shipping to UK, but many with fancy shipping costs. Those over here are around £50-£60 much more than the dollar price. I think I will gamble on a very cheap one and see what I get, maybe to refabricate, don't need a fancy case.
 
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CLUELESS1

Senior Member
Just went out and bought some laser glossy paper to use for PCB/Toner method. Looked on the media selection, and only transparancy is near to photo paper. Called Samsung, they said my black/white laser printer will not print on laser glossy paper!! I recently used the toner method using a magazine, has anyone used transparency sheet or will that melt with an iron or laminator. If only things were easier.
 
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tony_g

Senior Member
i boght my toner transfer paper from ebay, where else lol but seriously its pretty good for doing what it needs to, i think i got 500 A4 sized sheets for about $7.

its about the same thickness as normal paper and has a nice glossy side to release the toner once its been fused and dunked in a cold water bath, then it just peels of with no hassle.
 
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