Jojo, why do you mill rather than etch? Are thr plates thicker? Awesome cnc setup. mukhang nailed mo na. How thick can that do?
Hi Gino,
Milling is way better than etching. No undercuts, no flashouts, etc. Precision at it's finest. It is also chemical free so I don't get my hands and everything around the lab dirty. I also get the bonus of using the ratsnest as a ground plane.
And most of all it is a fully automated CAD/CAM setup. I design whatever I want on my laptop, generate and send the g-codes to my cnc pc and just feed it with a blank pcb to mill and it does everything, even the drilling.
Thickness and milling depth is bit dependent, a little trigonometry computation and I can calculate the optimum mill depth based on the pcb copper weight and the optimal angle of bit to be used. Thankfully, Abacus Robot (that's the name of my machine) can now chew even the toughest FR4 glass passivated boards I can find.
Yeah, after a lot of practice and broken bits I think I have it nailed already. Although it started with junk parts and surplus motors and drivers, I have already upgraded it with the finest Gecko drivers and stepper motors I can afford and optimized the setup for my pcb fabrication needs.
