I really must typo check more...
|
Grashopper, you have been introduced to the are of the "greenwire" It is a rite -of-passage we all must pass. In the future, your design goals list will include no "greenwires" meaning no goofups.? We always calle it greenwiring, but bluewiring works or any color really. Most often done with wirewrap or 28-24guage wire. Some brands even have wire for this with a wire insulation that inclued and outer layer of hotglue the you tack to the pcb with a heating element. If you run out an buy any electronic product's first release, and open it up, you often with find greenwiring. I wait until v2 or v3 of most things I want to be released before buying. ? 
|
I have a wire wrap tool. Never thought of that. I was wondering about a solid wire. I think I will try out your ideas if for no other reason than learning. I have Eagle mastered but was trying out a new one online and missed something trying to hurry too much. Wire wrap and quick solder due to transistor leg. Best Kevin
|
Autorouters are not perfect.? In Eagle, the 100% on an autorouter
says that it's often finished, bu there are no guarantees that all
the connections are properly routed (as in routed, and not an
airwire).
In Eagle, you evaluate a design, then hit the ratsnest button.?
If the board is completely routed, the ratsnest program will
complain that there's nothing to do.? This is a good thing.
You must run the schematic error checker before you route, and
then run the board error checker after.? Often, an incompletely
routed board (especially if there are unintended overlaps) will
route to the same percentage regardless of the algorithm.?
as far as the board is concerned, either #30 or #26 solid wire
works fine.? You can route it like a trace, and has been
mentioned, hold it down with a small spot of glue.? Insulated
kynar wire works well, but it has insulation that doesn't resist
heat well.
If the board is meant to be a product, it's up to you to decide
whether or not a jumper is permitted.? I've seen jumpers on
commercial gear.
Harvey
On 5/18/2019 8:04 AM, Kevin Byrne via
Groups.Io wrote:
toggle quoted message
Show quoted text
I have a new pcb bought in china that is missing a trace. It goes
from a resistor leg to a transistor leg. Question is there a
repair that would actually work for this board. It is a quality
tone control board. Would it be bes to just scrap the board as a
auto router failed me in pointing out a air wire on EDA site.
|
I have a new pcb bought in china that is missing a trace. It goes from
a resistor leg to a transistor leg. Question is there a repair that would
actually work for this board. A typical fix for this kind of a problem would simply use a piece of wire-wrap wire (30 ga) soldered between the two points. You could probably tack the wire down with glue or just a piece of tape. - Mark
|
You used autorouter :O
You did not check the results of autorouter's work!
Just put a wire link on bottom side.
On 18.5.19. 14:04, Kevin Byrne via
Groups.Io wrote:
toggle quoted message
Show quoted text
I have a new pcb bought in china that is missing a trace. It goes
from a resistor leg to a transistor leg. Question is there a
repair that would actually work for this board. It is a quality
tone control board. Would it be bes to just scrap the board as a
auto router failed me in pointing out a air wire on EDA site.
|
Have you ever thought of just placing a wire under the board
between the two points missing the trace??
Lee, w0vt
On 5/18/2019 7:04 AM, Kevin Byrne via
Groups.Io wrote:
toggle quoted message
Show quoted text
I have a new pcb bought in china that is missing a trace. It goes
from a resistor leg to a transistor leg. Question is there a
repair that would actually work for this board. It is a quality
tone control board. Would it be bes to just scrap the board as a
auto router failed me in pointing out a air wire on EDA site.
|
I have a new pcb bought in china that is missing a trace. It goes from a resistor leg to a transistor leg. Question is there a repair that would actually work for this board. It is a quality tone control board. Would it be bes to just scrap the board as a auto router failed me in pointing out a air wire on EDA site.
|
Re: PCB milling - getting started (light bulb moment)
Likewise, I discovered drilling 0.2mm holes in PCbs with a 0.2mm end mill doesn't work so well either!? And it's a lot cheaper breaking drills than endmills :-( Mark.
On Wed, 15 May 2019, 4:00 am Mark Pilant < mark@... wrote: I did discover one significant issue causing problems with my initial milling
attempts.? Drum role.....? ?:-P
What I thought was a end mill was in fact, a ....... drill.? Correct size,
wrong bit.? Sigh.? (As I slap myself.)
I do have the correct carbide end mills, so I may give this another try using
the *correct* bit this time.? I expect the "skating" should be significantly
reduced if not eliminated.
With a red face...
- Mark
|
Re: PCB milling - getting started (light bulb moment)
You have to face teething troubles before gaining experience.? No need for a red face,lol.? Wrong bir, worn bit later on are part of any mechanical equipment, unlike laser pcb miller.
Even laser woul reduce irs power due to aging, i fear.
All the best Sarma vu3zmv
On Tue, 14 May 2019, 11:30 pm Mark Pilant < mark@... wrote: I did discover one significant issue causing problems with my initial milling
attempts.? Drum role.....? ?:-P
What I thought was a end mill was in fact, a ....... drill.? Correct size,
wrong bit.? Sigh.? (As I slap myself.)
I do have the correct carbide end mills, so I may give this another try using
the *correct* bit this time.? I expect the "skating" should be significantly
reduced if not eliminated.
With a red face...
- Mark
|
Re: PCB milling - getting started (light bulb moment)
I¡¯m sure that kind of stuff happens to all of us!
Thanks for sharing the pictures?
On Tue, 14 May 2019 at 15:00 Mark Pilant < mark@...> wrote: I did discover one significant issue causing problems with my initial milling
attempts.? Drum role.....? ?:-P
What I thought was a end mill was in fact, a ....... drill.? Correct size,
wrong bit.? Sigh.? (As I slap myself.)
I do have the correct carbide end mills, so I may give this another try using
the *correct* bit this time.? I expect the "skating" should be significantly
reduced if not eliminated.
With a red face...
- Mark
-- Bruno Basto Software Engineer - Brazil Liferay, Inc. Enterprise. Open Source. For Life.
|
Re: PCB milling - getting started (light bulb moment)
I did discover one significant issue causing problems with my initial milling
attempts. Drum role..... :-P
What I thought was a end mill was in fact, a ....... drill. Correct size,
wrong bit. Sigh. (As I slap myself.)
I do have the correct carbide end mills, so I may give this another try using
the *correct* bit this time. I expect the "skating" should be significantly
reduced if not eliminated.
With a red face...
- Mark
|
Re: PCB milling - getting started
Hi Bruno.
I've attached a couple of pictures of the (almost) completed board. The
large pads on the left need to be drilled to fit 16 gauge wire. I also
need to trim the board to fit the enclosure. Then add all the parts :-)
Here is what I did to mill and drill this board:
1) Cut a piece of 1/4" (6mm) pressed hardboard slightly larger than
the PCB blank to use as a spoils board.
2) Place the PCB blank on top of the hardboard and clamp both to
the CNC table.
3) Mill the board.
4) Change the "V" milling bit to a 0.9mm drill bit and do a Z axis
probe.
5) Because the XY origin of the drilling gcode was different than the
XY origin of the PCB milling gcode, I needed to reset the XY origin
prior to drilling.
6) Drill the board. The 6 pads on the left need to be drilled larger,
but the smaller holes will act as pilot holes.
7) Z depth was set to 2mm, enough to get through the PCB stock and a
bit into the hardboard spoils board.
8) Clean out the milling groves with a fine brass bristled brush.
This also cleans the board up nicely for soldering.
- Mark
|
Re: stop send me answears
|
Re: PCB milling - getting started
Glad to hear things worked out. Care to share some pictures?. I'm planing on spending some money on a CNC. Not sure if I'll be doing milling, as it seems to deliver mixed results. I plan to use it for drilling and maybe a laser to expose the traces. Bruno Basto Software Engineer - Brazil Liferay, Inc. Enterprise. Open Source. For Life.
On Sun, May 12, 2019 at 5:44 PM Mark Pilant < mark@...> wrote: After finally getting to spend some more time, I have a good PCB :-)
I did encounter one minor anomaly when "drilling" but it was easy to
work around.? (The anomaly was the drill file generated from the Kicad
drill file had a different reference origin than the PCB.? I'm not sure
why, more investigation needed.)? I also didn't actually drill, but
rather just used the V bit to "center punch" where the drilling was
actually going to be done.
Here are some of the milling information I finally used:
? ?Bit: 0.1mm 30 degree "V" bit
? ?Spindle speed: about 8000 RPM
? ?Depth of cut: .4mm (0.0078")
? ?Feed: 50mm / min
After all the milling / drilling I took down all the sharp edges left
on the traces with some very fine (400 grit or so) sand paper.? After
that I used a small brass bristle brush to clean out anything left in
the milled groves.
Time for drilling and soldering :-)
Here are some of the things I learned.
Making single sided PCBs, with the traces on the "back", is not all
together straight forward.? Although it is not all that difficult to do.
Larger pieces are more prone to flexing than smaller pieces.? From the
same stock, some 30mm x 60mm milled without problems, but a larger board
(65mm x 130mm) had sufficient flexing to have problems with auto-leveling.
The PCB stock *really* needs to be securely fastened to the table.
Not only to eliminate X & Y axis shifting, but to eliminate / minimize
the PCB stock flexing for Z axis cutting.
Auto-leveling is really important.? Fractions of an inch/mm matter.
Not only might the table not be exactly parallel to the Z guide rods
and drive screw, but it may be possible to have PCB stock of varying
(but small) thickness.
Auto-leveling may not be able to address flexing.? As the probe is used
for auto-leveling, not enough force is applied to cause the stock to flex.
(As would be expected.)? However, milling may exert enough force to cause
the stock to flex and the bit to ride up / skate on the copper.? Using an
end mill seems to be more likely than a V milling bit to ride up / skate
on the copper.
I hope this helps others in the future.
- Mark
|
Re: PCB milling - getting started
After finally getting to spend some more time, I have a good PCB :-)
I did encounter one minor anomaly when "drilling" but it was easy to
work around. (The anomaly was the drill file generated from the Kicad
drill file had a different reference origin than the PCB. I'm not sure
why, more investigation needed.) I also didn't actually drill, but
rather just used the V bit to "center punch" where the drilling was
actually going to be done.
Here are some of the milling information I finally used:
Bit: 0.1mm 30 degree "V" bit
Spindle speed: about 8000 RPM
Depth of cut: .4mm (0.0078")
Feed: 50mm / min
After all the milling / drilling I took down all the sharp edges left
on the traces with some very fine (400 grit or so) sand paper. After
that I used a small brass bristle brush to clean out anything left in
the milled groves.
Time for drilling and soldering :-)
Here are some of the things I learned.
Making single sided PCBs, with the traces on the "back", is not all
together straight forward. Although it is not all that difficult to do.
Larger pieces are more prone to flexing than smaller pieces. From the
same stock, some 30mm x 60mm milled without problems, but a larger board
(65mm x 130mm) had sufficient flexing to have problems with auto-leveling.
The PCB stock *really* needs to be securely fastened to the table.
Not only to eliminate X & Y axis shifting, but to eliminate / minimize
the PCB stock flexing for Z axis cutting.
Auto-leveling is really important. Fractions of an inch/mm matter.
Not only might the table not be exactly parallel to the Z guide rods
and drive screw, but it may be possible to have PCB stock of varying
(but small) thickness.
Auto-leveling may not be able to address flexing. As the probe is used
for auto-leveling, not enough force is applied to cause the stock to flex.
(As would be expected.) However, milling may exert enough force to cause
the stock to flex and the bit to ride up / skate on the copper. Using an
end mill seems to be more likely than a V milling bit to ride up / skate
on the copper.
I hope this helps others in the future.
- Mark
|
Re: PCB milling - getting started
@? ?casy_ch@... try this: and Could you send me an example file of your hpgl output. (? indigoredster@...?)
I was looking at my utils and they are hardcoded in some respects. I realized I had one util to clean up?
the comreport formatting and then a 2nd util to do the conversion. The 2nd util I wrote has matrix maths?
to do real arc conversion. I did those fully as an exercise based on some really good youtube videos by a?
professor teaching game programming transformations.
|
Re: PCB milling - getting started
Could you send me an example file of your hpgl output. ( indigoredster@... ) I was looking at my utils and they are hardcoded in some respects. I realized I had one util to clean up? the comreport formatting and then a 2nd util to do the conversion. The 2nd util I wrote has matrix maths? to do real arc conversion. I did those fully as an exercise based on some really good youtube videos by a? professor teaching game programming transformations.
Hi Lee
Interesting description. Would you be willing to send me your
hpgl to gcode translator. I use a cheap German pcb program which
can only export HPGL, Excellon and Gerber files. I do not use
Excellon and Gerber ones, not for me.
Regards
Jean-Claude
Am 08.05.2019 um 22:27 schrieb Lee
Studley:
I didn't really pay much attention to actual depth( and the maths
;-) other than making sure the bit cuts through the copper fully.
My min trace width setting in the sw(altium) was 15mils.
I use an ancient copy of lpkf software ( from a machine I had
years ago ) for the isolation. I wrote an hpgl to gcode translator
to process a report that the sw generates.
I'm sure the sw you are using does similar paths.
The rate was about 3mm/sec so ~180mm/min
It could be your copper thickness: it looks like 2oz which might
be harder to cut milling-wise(?) Are you in the usa? I can send
you a sheet of what I'm using. I got it on ebay way back.
|
Re: PCB milling - getting started
On that copper tear out, are you using HSS (high speed steel) cutters? HSS will get dull in fast order when working with fiberglass boards. Carbide cutters and drills are almost mandatory.
Also, a cutting fluid may help. You could try alcohol or WD-40; just a suggestion.
|
Re: PCB milling - getting started
Hello Mark
I have a small Rietschle pump. Some aquarium pumps are just good
for it but not all. For the foam I buy it from super markets
here in Switzerland.
I also tried to make a larger one (abt 40 x 60cm) but the
thickness of such a large dimension is not the best as some of
the foam plates have a varying thickness. I have fixed them
between two wooden flats.
Jean-Claude
Am 09.05.2019 um 21:26 schrieb Mark
Pilant:
toggle quoted message
Show quoted text
Hi
Jean-Claude.
I *like* your vacuum table.? Very ingenious.
What are you using for a vacuum source?
- Mark
|
Steven Greenfield AE7HD
