cut my first PCB with CNC Machine

[greenjames]

Hello all
Well I've made (cut) my first board today.

Images will follow tomorrow

Now while I enjoyed my self making this board I did find it very long winded
I drew my design in Diptrace and then exported it to a DXF file which sounds easy How ever when I opened it in my CAD program and VCARVE PRO I was faced with single lines for my traces. Now faced with single lines I just offset them inwards & outwards cool but it took for ever to do also at the end of the day my traces are all a bit close but I think usable but I will let you all be the judge of that. after I offset all the traces I went to my CAD program and added just the holes as on the vcarve drawing I deleted all the holes as I wanted it to be constant which worked very well.

I have to admit my first cut out of the traces was wrong I didn't mirror the drawing o'well you live and learn all in all it worked out quite well but could be a bit faster next time.

I even got cocky and engraved the parts to the top, next time I will spray the top with white paint first and then engrave.

I think I broke two of all my cutters doing this

2 .01 20 deg engraver
2 0.80 end mills
2 2 mm endmill for cutting out the board and Location holes

I think next time I'm going to try and change trace and pad sizes esp on the resistors, diode's,motor,power,LDR also the power amps but for a first go I think I've made a good start




James

 

[greenjames]

yes it feels quite nice to have made my first board

Plus I did it on my own CNC machine. I spent all weekend making a vac bed for my machine that didn't work how I wanted it to, My PCB board was to bent for the vac to work. with this in mind I'm going to increase the size of the intake holes from 6mm to a whopping 32 mm as I have some old pvc pip in the garage.

but the board I made did benefit from the flat vac bed.

well here are the images of my first board






James