

It can achieve even smaller traces if i turn down the feedrate.īut the whole pcb routing idea can be effected with quality of the bare pcb, the sharpness and quality of the used bit, feedrate, the setup of your machine (if its bolted down to a solid surface or if it is on a table that can shake a little), etc etc. I can route 0.4mm traces with 0.2mm engraving bit in 300mm/min feedrate. Although it required some minor adjustment it works great with the diptrace + flatcam + mach3 combo.Īfter some hard testing we have changed the aluminum bed with the 10mm steel one 2 years ago, and now the machine is nearly rock solid.

tried wood, abs, hipps, aluminum and even steel one time. We have been mostly using it in pcb routing but our mechanical eng.

We have been using a Chinese cnc3040 machine nearly for 4 years which we aquired from a well known chinese online site. Posted in cnc hacks, Tool Hacks Tagged cnc, double sided, fr4, mask, pcb, resist, via Post navigation And who’s to say a DIY machine couldn’t do as good a job? We’ve seen plenty of them before, and covered the pros and cons of etching versus milling too. Regardless of how they optimized the process, it’s a pleasure to watch.Īt about $2,600, these are not cheap machines, but they may make sense for someone needing high-quality boards with rapid turnaround. We’re not sure how they deal with variations in board thickness or warping, but they sure have it dialed in. Prefer your boards with solder resist and silkscreening? Not a problem, at least judging by the second video, which shows a finished board getting coated with UV-cure resist and then having the machine mill away just the resist on the solder pads. As if that weren’t enough, the machine then cuts traces on the other side of the board vias created by filling drilled holes with copper rivets and peening them over with a mandrel and a few light hammer taps connect the two sides. The first video below shows the machine milling 0.1 mm traces in FR4 the scale of the operation only becomes apparent when a gigantic toothbrush enters the frame to clear away a little swarf. While it appears to be optimized for PCB milling and drilling, the company also shows it milling metals, wood, plastic, and even glass. The machine is from an outfit called WEGSTR, based in the Czech Republic. But you’ve just got to watch this PCB milling CNC machine go through its paces! We’ve seen CNC machines perform feats of precision that shouldn’t be possible, whether it be milling a complex jet engine turbine blade or just squirting out hot plastic. We know that by this point in the development of CNC technology, nothing should amaze us.
