Build Your Own PCB Milling Machine

mwandel writes "It used to be that one off amateur printed circuit boards were all etched in acid. A lot of companies nowadays use a special form of milling machine to mill them out of solid copper clad circuit boards. This guy Jonathan Westhues built his own PCB milling machine out of various parts, with a laminate trimmer as the milling head. Lots of other neat hacks on his Webpage as well."

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There are easier ways

[John Jorsett]

Seems like a lot of trouble to go to when it's pretty cheap to get small-quantity custom boards done.

Re:There are easier ways

[lirkbald]

A couple others to try:

ExpressPCB- Has an offer that will let you make 3 3.8"X2.5" 2-sided boards for about $60, as well as a more general off that's not too much more pricey. They have their own board design software you have to use, which is a bit primitive but adequate for hobbyist use, though it's a problem if you were to ever want someone else to make your boards.

Advanced Circuits- Has a deal to make 2-sided boards for $33/ea, min qty 3. These boards have a solder mask, which is required for dealing with fine-pitch SMT parts, and makes your board all pretty and professional-looking ;-)

Sierra Proto Express- Has a similar deal to Advanced Circuits, but also has a good price to make four-layer boards.

Some general notes- I've used the first two, and it worked alright, but I haven't tried the third one. The latter two require Gerber and Excellon data- this is the standard format for PCB plotting and drilling information information. Essentially any board layout software should be able to generate them. However, it is not trivial to figure out what precisely to send the board manufacturer- you can't just blindly trust your layout software to do the Right Thing. I keep meaning to write a little tutorial on my hard-won knowledge about this, but I've never gotten around to it :-/

Re:Amateur

[bjcubsfan]

They're still called PCBs even if they are milled. It's a naming convention that has stuck. It is in no way incorrect.

Also, It is not difficult to make a double sided PCB with a milling machine. There are many times in circuit board design that you don't need more than one or two layers. This is a solution that solves a lot of smaller problems every day.

Do It Right - John Has Great Plans

[MBCook]

note: the site is down, so I'm going off a mirror of the front page of the site, sorry if I get things wrong

If you want to build a machine to mill circuit boards, do it right. Build a machine designed by John C Kleinbauer. The Brute is designed to make PCBs cheaply. I recently bought some of John's plans (well worth it) and they are quite nice. They are very well done, easy to understand, don't need things that are exotic and hard to get (if your in the US). He includes a booklet on how to mill PCBs with The Brute, or you can order it seperatly. He even maintains and activly participates on his forum, Hardware Store CNC.

I've started to build a brute, and things are going pretty well considering I'm doing this in my spare time with only some time to work on it. If you guys are like me (I really like to build things with my hands) this is a ton of fun. I can't wait to get it running so that I can make PCBs, robot parts, a wooden clock and more.

Re:Electronics Enthusiasts...

[Smidge204]

How about sources for new/surplus components?

http://www.goldmine-elec.com/
http://www.alltro nics.com/
http://www.allcorp.com/
http://www.new ark.com/
http://www.jameco.com/

Try to never buy from Radioscrap. Overpriced and crap quality...

I've ordered from Alltronics before. They have a $15 minimum order, and sometimes an order may be delayed if something you requested is out of stock. They answer your e-mails rather quickly, though.

Jameco also sells the seemingly elusive PCI prototyping cards, though they're pricey ($70). Anyone know another supplier of these? (They're also good if you're looking to pick up a 266MHz PII motherboard for $20)

=Smidge=

Isn't it a salt?

[shoppa]

were all etched in acid

Isn't Ferric Chloride (the stuff you buy in bottles at Radio Shack, or at least I did when I was a kid) actually a salt? FeCl... looks like a salt to me!

Re:Isn't it a salt?

[Paul Neubauer]

Yes, it is a salt. Copper is more reactive than iron, so the etch works by the chlorine trading iron for copper. The "filings" left after etching are the iron that was freed in the reaction.

Some folks see it anything that 'eats' away at something as being caused by an acid, even if no acid is really involved. Wouldn't it be nice if chemistry was taught? And taught in a way that was effective?

Re:Electronics Enthusiasts...

[Kevin Burtch]

Well, there used to be Electronics Now and Popular Electronics (which merged, and became Poptronix), but the printed publications are gone (to my knowledge). You may be able to find all the old issues at your local library... although ones over 1 year old may be only on microfische.

As much as I'm annoyed with Radio Shack for turning into a toy and appliance store (they used to be an electronics hobbyist store), they do still have a handfull of items for the electronics tinkerer.
I'd recommend picking up all of their Engineer's Mini-Notebooks to start with.
I'd also recommend checking out some of their X-in-one kits... I think they have a 300-in-one now (I hope they haven't stopped making these).
They have all kinds of example circuits that you can make by hand wiring (read: no soldering) the circuits together - and some of the examples are kind of cool for a beginner. I started with a 150-in-one kit (it was the biggest at the time) way back when I was a teen.

After this... if you want to get into digital electronics, pick up the TTL Cookbook and CMOS Cookbook by Sam's.
If you want to get into audio electronics, pick up the Audio IC OP-Amp Applications (also by Sam's).
If you're a musician, there's a VERY cool one called Electronic Projects for Musicians by Craig Anderton. Use this one with the above audio book to come up with some really cool guitar effect "pedals".

I hope this helps!

Re:milling machines are cool

[madfgurtbn]

See www.desktopcnc.com for a comparison of various tabletop cnc machines. Depends on your personal definition of "affordable", but there are some small machines $3k

I don't think you could reach .0001 tolerance on those low-end machines, but most of them would get close to .001, which is plenty for most hobbyist projects.

pretty unfortunate

[RestiffBard]

This is one of the cooler "News for Nerds" articles I've seen in a while and its completely unreachable at 4 in the morning because of the slashdotting.

this is no longer humorous. As much as I often enjoy the +4 comments on certain articles reading slashdot is pretty much no longer worth the frustration of not being able to RTFA.

Can't wait till this article moves down the frontpage.