Milling machines are not an overkill or a solution for amateurs, they are a very good solution for inexpensive prototypes or production needed in small-mid volume.
Acid etching produces a functional board, but it simply does not look good, and you can't make 100 boards that are exactly alike. The lines are almost straight, the edges are not perfect, and if you are on a contract to deliver a product, this is not an option. Examples of where a milling machine is one of the best solutions: a university lab where the researchers are under government/industry contract and are supposed to deliver a working prototype or a small business with a military contract (small volume products).
I worked for a startup company for a while, and part of my job was to work on a QuickCircuit milling machine, and that thing had milling bits that were 4 mils thick (comparable to hair). You can hardly reach this precision with acid etching. I also adapted the machine to dice wafers, which replaced the company's practice of using an exactoknife:)
If you are in the IC design business, testing cheaply is of primary importance. You can get a full setup for producing boards for less than $10K. How's that compared to billions of $$$ for setting up an IC production plant? And if you are in the RF design business, you need the precision so that a crappy board does not screw up your high-frequency measurements.
Of course, milling is no option for producing high-volume PCBs with many layers, but don't think that ASUS spent months to design such a board to test their new motherboard design. First they have to verify that design works, which is done with a cheap PCB design, one that would hook up the ICs. Only after that stage can the final PCB design begin.
As long as the Z80 or 68K processors are still in use, simple PCBs will be here, and we need a cheap and fast way to design and make them.
I come from Europe, and in my hometown there are many houses that have lasted for centuries. Most commonly they have a concrete foundation. Then the first floor exterior walls are made of stone. The subsequent floors can be made either of brick or stone, it is really an aesthetic decision. The internal walls most often are not supporting, so they are made of brick.
Also, a trick I learned from my grandparents, which works great in keeping your house cool in summer and warm in winter. The idea is to basically have two layers of outer walls, with air in between. This technique has been used for centuries in the Middle East, where it is hot as hell.
Bulgaria is 13 centuries old, and some castles have lasted for centuries. There is a church near my old school which dates back to the 9th century or something like that. Believe me it is not that hard to make a house that your grand-grand children can live in. It probably will be expensive here in the states though, where people charge a lot for non-conventional stuff.
We didn't have cable in our house until August, when me and my roommates collectively decided to get cable and split the bill. We wanted just the basic package, no digital, no HBO, just the standard channels.
The next day Time Warner dispatched a guy who came when I was at school and installed digital cable with the full HBO package, for about double the price of what we had ordered.
When I came home I pointed out to my roommates that the digital box was not what we ordered, and that Time Warner should fix their mistake. Then we spent the whole evening watching movies (all my roommates love The Sopranos), and I realized what was Time Warner's "mistake" all about.
How many people out there had the same experience with your cable provider? Can you tell me a better way to actually bring digital cable into your living room? All the commercials about how great it is won't make the point until you actually see that fancy remote control and the cool menu. It's not a mistake they doubled our bill against our wish. It's the way they do business, people! Believe me, when it comes to these things, I live with 4 average John Doe's, who didn't care that they were lied in the face by the Big Company. They liked it! They could watch TV all day with all the cool movies!
And it's not only the cable providers. Southwestern Bell forced the "premium package" phone service on my girlfriend when she was connecting the phone at her place. Her first month bill was 80 bucks! All she wanted was local service, but the aggressive salesperson wouldn't get off the phone until she had all the perks. She even had insurance that if the phone set ever breaks, SB would come and replace it for free:)
This is a problem with the whole American consumer culture. For most people, convenience and options are more important than price, and even if some people care about the price, they would rather pay more than confront the people who lied to them. I am not talking about people like most of the/. crowd, I am talking about the people who drive a loaded $20,000 car when in reality it costs $12,000. Or the people who buy a $2300 Dell computer for their kid to play games. Or the people who must have a cell phone that costs $200 when they can get one for free.
It's a country driven by trust and marketing. Ask anyone who was not born in the US and they would agree.
I am about to buy a car myself so I want to share some links you may find useful. I will personally buy a regular Honda Civic since that's all I can afford.
1. If you want to see the greenest cars out there, and the meanest too, check out greenercars.com
2. If you are tight on your budget, consider getting the rare Civic HX, which has CVT transmission and is very fuel efficient. There are other makes that make cars with CVT, so you might want to look around.
3. Check out the site for compressed-air cars. Sounds funny, but they are already into production.
4. About the Honda Insight. I would seriously consider a Civic Hybrid instead. The Insight is definitely not comfortable, but ranks first on greenercars.com. Another thing about the Insight is that it is a very "political" car. Honda loses about $1000 on every Insight it sells. Just imagine the ad fees that you'll be charged if you buy one. Therefore, I won't be surprised if this model is discontinued after a few years. The Civic, on the other hand, is a much better competitor to the Prius and is definitely here to stay.
Good luck with getting a green car! We need more people like you and not the drive-an-11mpg-SUV people.:)
This is Marko, the guy you took Mcpherson's C class with, the "spanish" guy, remember...:)
The general public knows that Arkansas as nothing but chicken and rednecks. But:
1. University of Arkansas just got $300e6 from the waltons. How many of the big universities can boast with such gifts?
2. There are students from 106 countries at the above-mentioned university. Often only the private universities are so diverse.
3. In the past 10 years, the economic growth of Northwest Arkansas beat that of the Silicon Valley. The NWA area was mentioned as one of the top 10 places to live in the US.
4. I personally know one of the original Linux developers (his code got included by Linus in the original Linux), and another one is one of the major Gentoo Linux developers. Both of them live and work in Northwest Arkansas. And I am not even a member of the hacking community here!
5. The University of Arkansas programming team has been on the ACM World Finals for four years straight now. Only Stanford and the U of Virginia have done that of all the US universities.
I am working at a computer lab at a university. We serve the students and the faculty at the Department of Computer Engineering. We are not that rich, but we have managed to keep the facilities in somewhat decent shape. I have seen plenty of cool software that can be used in classrooms, but it costs an arm and a leg to buy it for Windows.
The faculty consists of some distinguished professors that have nothing against supporting the free software that Linux offers. So, where is the problem?
Here is the problem. Today I saw a dude trying to scratch his floppy out of the drive with a pen on one of the SPARC machines (the ones without a button on the drive, my favorite:)))). When I asked him why he was doing this, he said that he could not log on because his NT (!!) password did not work. So I had to type eject floppy for him.
Some people are SO used to windows (and PCs in general) that they would pay anything to keep things the way they are. I know that we need education in order to enlighten guys like this one. But in the school we don't have professors and able students only. We also have dumb students, secretaries, and all kinds of other people.
We can install Linux and spend the same money educating them how to use it, or we can simply stick with Windows and keep the dumb majority happy.
It is your choice.
I am personally for Linux. But who am I in a world of "ordinary" people?
Well, was it known how thick and dense Mars' atmosphere was? I mean, probably there was a miscalculation. Also, does it matter what the atmesphere is composed of as well as how thick it is? We know that N atoms are bigger than H, and therefore would be a bigger obstacle for the Satellite...
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Milling machines are not an overkill or a solution for amateurs, they are a very good solution for inexpensive prototypes or production needed in small-mid volume.
:)
Acid etching produces a functional board, but it simply does not look good, and you can't make 100 boards that are exactly alike. The lines are almost straight, the edges are not perfect, and if you are on a contract to deliver a product, this is not an option. Examples of where a milling machine is one of the best solutions: a university lab where the researchers are under government/industry contract and are supposed to deliver a working prototype or a small business with a military contract (small volume products).
I worked for a startup company for a while, and part of my job was to work on a QuickCircuit milling machine, and that thing had milling bits that were 4 mils thick (comparable to hair). You can hardly reach this precision with acid etching. I also adapted the machine to dice wafers, which replaced the company's practice of using an exactoknife
If you are in the IC design business, testing cheaply is of primary importance. You can get a full setup for producing boards for less than $10K. How's that compared to billions of $$$ for setting up an IC production plant? And if you are in the RF design business, you need the precision so that a crappy board does not screw up your high-frequency measurements.
Of course, milling is no option for producing high-volume PCBs with many layers, but don't think that ASUS spent months to design such a board to test their new motherboard design. First they have to verify that design works, which is done with a cheap PCB design, one that would hook up the ICs. Only after that stage can the final PCB design begin.
As long as the Z80 or 68K processors are still in use, simple PCBs will be here, and we need a cheap and fast way to design and make them.
I come from Europe, and in my hometown there are many houses that have lasted for centuries. Most commonly they have a concrete foundation. Then the first floor exterior walls are made of stone. The subsequent floors can be made either of brick or stone, it is really an aesthetic decision. The internal walls most often are not supporting, so they are made of brick.
Also, a trick I learned from my grandparents, which works great in keeping your house cool in summer and warm in winter. The idea is to basically have two layers of outer walls, with air in between. This technique has been used for centuries in the Middle East, where it is hot as hell.
Bulgaria is 13 centuries old, and some castles have lasted for centuries. There is a church near my old school which dates back to the 9th century or something like that. Believe me it is not that hard to make a house that your grand-grand children can live in. It probably will be expensive here in the states though, where people charge a lot for non-conventional stuff.
We didn't have cable in our house until August, when me and my roommates collectively decided to get cable and split the bill. We wanted just the basic package, no digital, no HBO, just the standard channels.
:)
/. crowd, I am talking about the people who drive a loaded $20,000 car when in reality it costs $12,000. Or the people who buy a $2300 Dell computer for their kid to play games. Or the people who must have a cell phone that costs $200 when they can get one for free.
The next day Time Warner dispatched a guy who came when I was at school and installed digital cable with the full HBO package, for about double the price of what we had ordered.
When I came home I pointed out to my roommates that the digital box was not what we ordered, and that Time Warner should fix their mistake. Then we spent the whole evening watching movies (all my roommates love The Sopranos), and I realized what was Time Warner's "mistake" all about.
How many people out there had the same experience with your cable provider? Can you tell me a better way to actually bring digital cable into your living room? All the commercials about how great it is won't make the point until you actually see that fancy remote control and the cool menu. It's not a mistake they doubled our bill against our wish. It's the way they do business, people! Believe me, when it comes to these things, I live with 4 average John Doe's, who didn't care that they were lied in the face by the Big Company. They liked it! They could watch TV all day with all the cool movies!
And it's not only the cable providers. Southwestern Bell forced the "premium package" phone service on my girlfriend when she was connecting the phone at her place. Her first month bill was 80 bucks! All she wanted was local service, but the aggressive salesperson wouldn't get off the phone until she had all the perks. She even had insurance that if the phone set ever breaks, SB would come and replace it for free
This is a problem with the whole American consumer culture. For most people, convenience and options are more important than price, and even if some people care about the price, they would rather pay more than confront the people who lied to them. I am not talking about people like most of the
It's a country driven by trust and marketing. Ask anyone who was not born in the US and they would agree.
I am about to buy a car myself so I want to share some links you may find useful. I will personally buy a regular Honda Civic since that's all I can afford.
:)
1. If you want to see the greenest cars out there, and the meanest too, check out greenercars.com
2. If you are tight on your budget, consider getting the rare Civic HX, which has CVT transmission and is very fuel efficient. There are other makes that make cars with CVT, so you might want to look around.
3. Check out the site for compressed-air cars. Sounds funny, but they are already into production.
4. About the Honda Insight. I would seriously consider a Civic Hybrid instead. The Insight is definitely not comfortable, but ranks first on greenercars.com. Another thing about the Insight is that it is a very "political" car. Honda loses about $1000 on every Insight it sells. Just imagine the ad fees that you'll be charged if you buy one. Therefore, I won't be surprised if this model is discontinued after a few years. The Civic, on the other hand, is a much better competitor to the Prius and is definitely here to stay.
Good luck with getting a green car! We need more people like you and not the drive-an-11mpg-SUV people.
I agree, John!
:)
This is Marko, the guy you took Mcpherson's C class with, the "spanish" guy, remember...
The general public knows that Arkansas as nothing but chicken and rednecks. But:
1. University of Arkansas just got $300e6 from the waltons. How many of the big universities can boast with such gifts?
2. There are students from 106 countries at the above-mentioned university. Often only the private universities are so diverse.
3. In the past 10 years, the economic growth of Northwest Arkansas beat that of the Silicon Valley. The NWA area was mentioned as one of the top 10 places to live in the US.
4. I personally know one of the original Linux developers (his code got included by Linus in the original Linux), and another one is one of the major Gentoo Linux developers. Both of them live and work in Northwest Arkansas. And I am not even a member of the hacking community here!
5. The University of Arkansas programming team has been on the ACM World Finals for four years straight now. Only Stanford and the U of Virginia have done that of all the US universities.
Just my 0.02.
Check out newsseer It was written by the same people who wrote citeseer, the great research index.
I am working at a computer lab at a university. We serve the students and the faculty at the Department of Computer Engineering. We are not that rich, but we have managed to keep the facilities in somewhat decent shape. I have seen plenty of cool software that can be used in classrooms, but it costs an arm and a leg to buy it for Windows.
:)))). When I asked him why he was doing this, he said that he could not log on because his NT (!!) password did not work. So I had to type eject floppy for him.
The faculty consists of some distinguished professors that have nothing against supporting the free software that Linux offers. So, where is the problem?
Here is the problem. Today I saw a dude trying to scratch his floppy out of the drive with a pen on one of the SPARC machines (the ones without a button on the drive, my favorite
Some people are SO used to windows (and PCs in general) that they would pay anything to keep things the way they are. I know that we need education in order to enlighten guys like this one. But in the school we don't have professors and able students only. We also have dumb students, secretaries, and all kinds of other people.
We can install Linux and spend the same money educating them how to use it, or we can simply stick with Windows and keep the dumb majority happy.
It is your choice.
I am personally for Linux. But who am I in a world of "ordinary" people?
What will be the next free large software application for Linux after Wordperfect 8? Thanks.
Well, was it known how thick and dense Mars' atmosphere was? I mean, probably there was a miscalculation. Also, does it matter what the atmesphere is composed of as well as how thick it is? We know that N atoms are bigger than H, and therefore would be a bigger obstacle for the Satellite...