Sorry about the 1080p-only upload again, but KZread is right now literally taking weeks to process 4K videos.

@avikowy

5 жыл бұрын

cmon, 720p would be fair enough :)

@papablopapapablo8123

5 жыл бұрын

Yes 720 please, there is a lot of empty space with no sense or interest while I have to say my Android I have eye deficiency in order to make zoom in my phone. Great job. I where missing your videos and now I know what you where working on.

@AndrewGillard

5 жыл бұрын

@@papablopapapablo8123 Uh, having him upload in 720p instead of 1080p won't make a difference to how big things are, so wouldn't stop you having to zoom in, if that's a current problem. You'd just see less detail. Maybe what you need is a larger screen instead, so that each pixel of the video is physically larger? Indeed you can already tell your Android device to show you the 720p version, because KZread creates copies of each uploaded video in lots of different resolutions, including 720p, 480p, 360p, 240p, and 144p!

@papablopapapablo8123

5 жыл бұрын

@@AndrewGillard well, only need it when PC screen is shown and want to read commands, parameters and other texts or details.

@SianaGearz

5 жыл бұрын

Would you please mind capturing software from a smaller window or temporarily a lower resolution screen? You can use something like Brianapps Sizer to set the window size to 720p or 1080p, and most software really doesn't falter too badly under 720p and the lower capture resolution or higher UI scale you can suffer, the more it will be accessible to people. Thing is, i'm semi-blind and i don't have a single 4K screen - what for if i can't see the pixels anyway? And i really couldn't tell what those tiny lines were saying that you were pointing at. People might be watching on their tablet or something. 4K upload wouldn't help at all, not in the slightest. And i don't see why i should necessarily be excluded. It's not like i'm incapable of operating machinery or too blind to use the software to begin with - just as long as it's not running in 4K.

I just finnished my first project with a CNC milled PCB. It gets interesting when you do double sided PCBs because the precision you can achieve is great when aligned properly. Also I recommend to use ultrasonic cleaning of the PCBs because little copper chips may short your traces. You will be surprised how many copper chips you will find in your cleaner that potentially could short out your board.

I went through the same learning process using the MPCNC with the same Makita router. Instead of using Flatcam, a Eagle plugin could be used to directly generate the g-code (pcb-gcode). As I had the same issue about the width of the milling at the first tries, I found that the 0.1mm/10° tips tend to break at the first touch with the pcb very easily, which lead to cut not with the actual tip, but with a broken edge of it causing wider cuts. I went to 0.2/30° and the result was perfect compared to the first trials, now it is easily possible to create pcbs for 0603 smd parts.

I am always impressed by the improvement of quality from your first videos to your most recent ones, nicely done and thanks for for such a helpful guide!

I'm glad you are doing detailed CNC videos like this instead of just printer reviews. I'd like you see doing this on a sturdier CNC machine.

I recently bought a 3018 CNC router to make my own PCB boards. You brought up some really good pointers that I'll keep in mind as I am working on my projects.

I went through the same sort of process as this with a cheap CNC3040, ran into the same issues, gave up pretty quick and crawled back to toner transfer (which I got really reliable by dipping the board in etch before attempting transfer). Kudos to you for following through to success! Now I have a K40 laser cutter, and I hope that I never have to go back.

So fun first hearing what Tom and Stefan are up to on the podcast and then actually seeing the videos Amazing video as always Can't help my self just binge watching a ton of your videos every time you upload something new

I'm an engineer, apprentice served toolmaker and an experienced CNC machinist but I have come never across your method of setting the Z height (minute 16:30) ..... brilliant and thank you, that's my preferred method from now on.

@gflmann2420

5 ай бұрын

Unfortunately, it can still happen if you then tighten the collet, the length changes a little....

@ribvicky

10 күн бұрын

Just use a short focal length lens to set the z axis.

This is soooooo awesome! Thank you!! Also mentioning the pitfalls and such makes a huge difference.

Thank you. I saw another video where this guy used CANDLE GRBR to operate his CNC machine. He was able to use Height Mapping that accounted for the thickness variations of the PCB material itself. That was a good idea to mill the surface flat, but you still had that SAME problem that I run into doing this. Using Height Mapping this problem goes away. I don't blame the "V" bit anymore, but I did just buy myself a set of 0.5 mm end mill bits. Thanks again for this great video.

Your parts stored in the IKEA container made me feel right at home. Great video too. Thank you.

Hey nice job! I have an Arduino CNC and i use flatCAM, the same method that you showcase and i have a few tips: -With those V bits i have succeed only with 0,3mm of isolation between traces and at most 0,6 mm traces width -When you drill the holes those drill bits don't align properly, so I create a pilot job of deep 0,2mm using a V bit and the I do the drill job, that helps to ensure every hole is aligned -I use chillipeppr instead of UGCS because you can do a Z height probing and also do a bed mesh probing to avoid non isolated traces Greetings from Costa Rica Tom!!

That opening seemed like quite a tongue twister! Thanks for the video!

Hey Thomas, I've been over all this too. After uncountable failures I can tell you that the key for success is to use quality brand engraving bits! Forget the chinese bits where you pay 10 bucks for 10 of them. Good quality engraving bits costs about 10$ each. The difference on results is another planet. Oh... I guess that autoleveling is mandatory too. My CNC is homemade and looks less stiffer than yours, and still I can achieve isolation lines of 0.1mm wide for 0.05mm of depth. Cheers mate!

Tip for soldering bare copper circuit boards: use a flux spray (SK10), this prevents the solder form bridging. After soldering you can easily remove it with LR PCB cleaner (or leave it on as a protective coating).

Tom, there is a company called Elaire that makes direct metric and imperial collets for the Makita router. They are not cheap but definitely worth it, runout gets so much better.

Love the vids, been thinking about a CNC engraver for a while, was relieved to see this was one of your vids :)

I knew somebody else had my idea before I did. You saved me a ton of work. Thanks!

Good job Tom. I subscribed weeks ago but I stumbled on this PCB video by good fortune. I have a Sain Smart 3018 Pro ( I've yet to assemble ) and doing PCB's is exactly what I want to do. Thanks.

Thank you for this information. I'm currently experimenting with milling with my second Mendel, on wood with a Dremel flex shaft. It has been a great opportunity to learn material properties, tool capabilities, and basic 3-axis cnc milling. PCB milling is definitely a future project. Currently, I've been doing my milling gcode by hand and with the help of bash scripts. I'm currently running a planing operation to remove 1cm of material from a 118x60mm block of material in preparation for further milling operations. I may design and construct a wooden X carriage in this manner.

I realize this video is two years old. Tom, thanks for an excellent write-up. I just built an ANT CNC (you should, too!) and ran into many of the same things you did here. Had I seen this video before purchasing my 0.1, 10-degree engraving tips -- I probably would have saved some money. That said - the reason flatcam doesn't do contoured cuts on board cutout geometry, is because flatcam is really.. not great. The board cutouts consider the existing min/max coordinates of the loaded geometries, then creates a simple bounding rect for the board cutout geometry. It doesn't pay _any_ attention to an edge-cuts gerber, except to get minmax coordinates. This is why you can generate a board cutout from the copper layers + a specified margin. I'd complain about the quality of flatcam more, but to get it to even run on my Ubuntu 10.21 system, I had to checkout an alternate branch from the github repository. It feels _almost_ as unpleasant to use as bCNC. ALMOST.

@awesomecronk7183

2 жыл бұрын

*Maybe* the issue is that you're using Ubuntu 10.21, when the latest release (as I recall) is Ubuntu 21.04?

Nice video! I do PCB's with my home made CNC machine too. It takes a lot of trial and error and a bit of tweaking, but after having done that once i'm able to mill out perfect PCB's. (Especially in Fritzing - thats what i use in combination with Flatcam - it seems necessary to enlarge the 'solder islands' to be able to solder the components confortably). I use a Kress spindle, same engraving bit and the same shank reducer Thomas uses, so the shank reducers are not the problem. My CNC machine does have ball screws however.

All the same things I learned pretty much in the same order. I have a similarly large collection of different kinds and sizes of mill bits. :)

Different beast, but the Chinese 6040 CNC I purchased to make the GHT carbon fibre camera gimbals I was selling was surprisingly accurate considering how cheap it was. I did need to replace the controller with a Gecko G540 controller which hiked up the price but when it came down to PCB’s I was able to mill stupidly small and accurate boards for SMD type applications. Only additional step on top of what you were doing was probing the surface of each copper board and applying that height map via my own program to the gcode. I just found that the copper thicknesses were too variable to rely on fixed cut depths. Probe was custom made with a piezo. The big OX CNC I also have which uses belts would not have the accuracy for this kind of work. Good for basic laser cutting though.

Arduino+Grbl is pretty avg, I would recommend using double nut ballscrews and a better motion controller + Mach4 + autoleveller. Also not a bad idea to spray the board with a conformal coating kinda like lacquer.

Would be good seeing a follow up video with the other brushless motor in there to see the difference that makes and allowing for wider traces. Nice video. Good to see this type.

Hello , i am using part of this video for my project presentation. Thank you

Freaky comment incoming! Love your sweater! Where do I get one, short of getting one from your wardrobe while you sleep 😂

I have a Long Mill 30X30 CNC router. The main reason I would us this technique is to make sure the components would fit. I am purchasing some screw terminals and want to make adjustments on the PCB before sending them to the manufacturer. The pricing through the manufacture is good for professional quality boards. Thank you letting me know about the design software. I am using EasyEDA and it has a minimum of 2 layers on the board which I only need one layer.

Perfect for quick prototypes to test layout and pickup any routing errors before getting pcb manufactured.

I really look forward to the 3D printer version of this video. Sure, it's probably going to be limited to fairly large components, but that's all I have been doing so far (and wiring stuff directly - not even using PCBs). I guess the idea is to print a mask on a copper board (TPU should stick pretty well?) and then use an acid bath to etch away the unwanted copper with acid.

Regarding the squared board corners: I'm using FlatCAM 8.92 and have made a "cruciform" board like this: In the Gerber section for the edge cutouts, select "Cutout tool" next to "Board cutout". Then, after putting in the cutter parameters, use the "Generate Geo" button next to "Freeform". That makes the cut outline follow the actual line, rather than squaring it off.

Just a note that the newest version of Flatcam (8.9.x) has a lot of bug fixes and feature additions over the 8.5 version released years ago. A new developer took over the project and has really made some great headway. Open source FTW!

It's called a rubout Tom! I don't know if Flat CAM is able to do it but basically it removes all copper that isn't a trace or a ground plane, which makes soldering a little easier on prototype boards. It does take a little while longer, but it can certainly be worth it when you get down to 0603 components etc.

As a reference, if you were to send your gerbers off to a PCB prototyping house, you would need 8-12mil clearance between traces (and minimum trace width) for most of the budget ones to accept your design with a good yield - and they're using a several times magnified photo lithography process that's generally got tighter control and repeatability than most inexpensive CnC machines. If you're going to mill your own boards, I'd recommend going a tad bit deep with the bit (lots of people run into issues with leveling), and leaving your trace width and clearance on the wider side for reliable results. For single sided routing like this, jumper links are a real help for those few traces you can't get past pads, and they look clean populated on the top of the board. Removing some of the copper fill takes more milling time, but also gives you that solder resist effect in some locations... otherwise it's another vote for using oversized pads (they can hold more solder before they bridge and are easier to land an iron on) and oversized clearance. The cheapest option is still the budget PCB houses, since you get two layers and solder resist for often less than a dollar a board plus shipping, but it's certainly fascinating to do on a mill at home. A home-etched board sounds like a neat thing to show in a video - good excuse to play with nasty chemicals!

@jankotarski6738

5 жыл бұрын

Actually, 6 mil width/spacing is a standard for cheap Chinese PCBs and the quality is reasonably good.

@Antiath

5 жыл бұрын

Couldn't agree more. Those chinese pcb manufactuirers are a life saver. I always hated the home etching methods and found them unreliable (let alone the nastyness) . And while I would love to have a pcb milling machine to get prototypes fast, it's seems like it's really hard to achieve good results with a typical hobbyist budget. The biggest disadvantage to me is that you are limited to single sided boards. You can do two layer boards with a milling machine but you have to be carefull with the placement and you have to manually solder all the vias. I'm lazy so it's a big no no :p

@UberAlphaSirus

5 жыл бұрын

Yup, making PCBs is such a ball ache. Just the cost of half decent copper clad board makes the chinese pcb house well worth it. Let alone all the other crap, time, mess, fails. Just for a basic board with no mask or screen. Dot or vero board for on offs. China anything else.

@UberAlphaSirus

5 жыл бұрын

Yup, making PCBs is such a ball ache. Just the cost of half decent copper clad board makes the chinese pcb house well worth it. Let alone all the other crap, time, mess, fails. Just for a basic board with no mask or screen. Dot or vero board for on offs. China anything else.

for getting perfect z height pcb milling use the tool as a zprobe by hooking leads to the copper board you can either do it manually or hook it up like an endstop for z

Nice video! I also use a cnc to make circuit boards in my work. I use the easy EDA to design the pcb, the flat Cam to generate the gcode, the Bcnc to control the machine and this last I really recommend, is totally free and open source and very useful.

@vilmondesribeiro4363

5 жыл бұрын

The v carve bit is the best way to make the isolation of the copper, the flute bit is more sensitive and breaks easily.

@vilmondesribeiro4363

5 жыл бұрын

And always is better enlarge the pad diameter always as possible.

I've done with with an MDX-40, I always used 'dipping' with the drill paths. It takes 3 or 4 passes on each hole, backing out each time and going farther in. Less stress on the drill bit, and slightly better holes. YMMV.

@hein_mcleod

5 жыл бұрын

Aka peck drilling

Fantastic insight Tom. Thank you.

Thanx for your experience, Thomas! Can the marker painting (fixed in a 3d printer's head) be a better method? I mean that it will replace laser printer method ink applying stage.

"Tech2C" did a beautiful job with cnc on a double sided pc board

this is waaaay more like it man. thank you.

Great stuff, liked and subbed, what tape are you using at the beginning to hold the test stock in place ?

Product namer: "Yo' dawg, I heard you liked CNC..."

I wanted to try and print straight onto the copper board then etch it. I used to make pcb’s with a pen by drawing onto the board then etching it so I think printing the tracks onto the board should work?

I would sign for it! This is fine! in fact I would like to have an even broader track. holes would be necessary! I would make little islands where I would solder EN SMD AND ordinary parts! For High Freqwent, for radio, and transmitters this would be perfect! Friendly greetings from The Netherlands! Rob.

Nice instructional video. Thanks for sharing. : )

Nicely done

Yeah, when I saw your original layout with those tiny traces, I said to myself: good luck with that!

I'm with Bob, fade the music out soon after start or after an intro. It's what your saying that's important here. Good content though. two thumbs up!

thanks for the video, is there anyway to mill out the ground plane

Very helpful video Tom! Will be looking to replicate soon on my CNC router. It's pretty much an OpenBuilds OX. Currently it has a massive water cooled monster spindle - may need an ER11 but I will see how it goes with the current one first. Would you lose fewer pads if you drill after routing traces? Strikes me that if there was more copper left on the board it would lift up the edges less while routing, then hopefully the drilling is the cleaner process. Currently I do PCB prototyping using etchant, and heat transferring toner as an etch resist. It works really well - traces are much better than the sienci traces, and screen to PCB is less than half an hour - but I'm drilling holes manually with a mini pillar drill. I'm hopeful to try a hybrid approach where I etch the PCBs then drill and cut them them out on a mini mill or even a 3D printer...

Hi Tom I've used Flat cam to cut custom PCB's before the board cut out adds Tabs but will only generate a square shape around your traces. if you process the profile it will cut the shape but will not add any tabs so you'll need to make sure that your work is held down, if you are using clamps. For Custom PCB shapes process the "profile" or "contor" GERBER file as you would for the traces in flatcam rather than using the board cut out feature. Flat cam will generate two paths an inside cut and an outside cut. continue working through flatcam's processes untill you have your gcode file. now edit it in a text editor search for the "G00 Z1.000" command (the Z hop) inorder to find the start of the different cuts. the top half of the file is the inside cut whilst the bottom half is the outside cut. delete the bit you don't need.

you can use free space on PCB for component label milling. And you can coat it with spray lack, like plastik-70

can you do a video on how to apply the coating (if you can buy it) to a milled pcb?

Not that I have much experience in this but you leveled the MDF base but didn't level your MDF scrap board that you stacked the copperboard on top of.

Hello ! excellent work !! Do you have the purchase link for the 0.5mm cutter?

Love that you're using FlatCAM for this demo, when I was looking into doing this a while back it seemed like all the tutorials were for using Eagles built in gerber to gcode plugin. The board cutout feature in FlatCAM will only do a bounding box, but since you already have a board cutout layer gerber there's a trick you can use with that. Generate geometry on the board cutout gerber like you would for isolation routing. That will leave you with a trace on the outside AND inside, which isn't what you want, but then you can use FlatCAMs "exteriors" command on that geometry you just created. It will create another copy of the geometry but only the outside portion. Carbide 3D makes a 40 degree PCB engraving bit that I find works a lot better. I'm able to get a consistent 0.2mm "trace" carved out. Milling out FR4 produces a lot of very small glass dust particles. So hopefully you're using a 0.3 micron HEPA filter on the vac.

@michaelbitsch

5 жыл бұрын

It takes a lot longer, but I've also had better luck with keeping the burs down by setting my feed rate lower, around 110-120mm/min

@RoterFruchtZwerg

5 жыл бұрын

I just put water on the pcb during milling... cools the bit and solves the dust problem :)

@michaelbitsch

5 жыл бұрын

@@RoterFruchtZwerg Good idea, I've seen it done with a mineral oil bath too.

@gskluzacek

Жыл бұрын

+1 regarding the fiberglass dust particles- those can be very nasty if you breathe them in to your lungs

Maybe using extra bit of flux can prevent those bridges Tom. Also whenever i see the pcb milling marco reps comes in my mind. Maybe you guys collab in sometime in future ^^

you could use a 2 part epoxy to use out as the solder-resist and then cnc the holes later

Nice demonstration

I'm really surprised you haven't 3d printed a dust collection adapter for that CNC.

Just a random suggestion: you can use a piece of steel and connect alligators to it and your CNC collet, ending in Z endstop pins in your control board. Then probe for Z. Finally, misure the depth of the steel piece, move the CNC down of the same amount and reset with G92. There you go, perfect 0 on Z

There’s also an Eagle cam plugin that works well for milling.

Can we use flat engraving bits for pcb engraving instead of v shaped 30 or 40° ,

You could do a quick silicone conformal coating to act as a solder mask and then just solder over the parts you need to connect.

You should use bigger pads and wider tracks. Did you use any bias? Could you mill a double sided board?

23:16 It'd be interesting to see how well a down spiral mill would do here. I'm not sure if they make them that small, though.

"Audio recorded separately" 😏

Great video man. I recommend the "painters tape and super glue" trick for adhesive though, especially for precision cut materials. For me, carpet tape always had too much variance across a longer run, plus its pretty annoying pealing it off. Also, may help using a diamond cut bit.

@williamsanders6092

5 жыл бұрын

You can buy actual double sided tape that is made for machining. With the number of failures you that are carpet tape related the higher expense of the machining grade tape is worth it.

@redrumizbak

5 жыл бұрын

William Sanders what brand/make should I search for? I’ve phoned a few adhesive manufacturers and none of them knew of a similar product.

I know nothing about this topic and just came across your video by accident, but doesn't the sticky tape move at all - not even by 0.1mm? Won't sideways pressure cause just a slight movement of the PCB and it will depend on what direction the bit is travelling in? As a test, what if you clamped the PCB firmly to the bed at both ends without using any tape under the PCB?

hi i am trying to create a PCB but i don't know what bit tool is fine? i used 10 dredge 0.1 mm V shaped tool but is was too fragile !! please tell me what kind of bit is better or witch one you using

Si3nci Mill One - better?

@MadeWithLayers

5 жыл бұрын

How'd you pronounce that? 😁

@ProtonOne11

5 жыл бұрын

@@MadeWithLayers ˈsaɪənsɪ mɪl wʌn - ˈbetə(r)

Cool video Thomas! Im also interested in starting to mill PCB's at home, a while back I saw this project Cyclone PCB Factory. It is a 3d printable CNC machine for PCB milling using a Dremel 3000 as router, results look very good. They have a RepRap and Github page if you ever want to check it out

Look at the video and you can see the endmill wobbling ever so slightly so run out needs to be put into the Eagle file and it will turn out much better. Try 0.6 or 0.7.

I feel the black paint and laser engraving method might be better/more precise though you still have to drill the holes

Nice video, keep it up , thank you :)

hi my friend i want ask you , how can make many turns to cut pcb with flatcam ?

Have you thought about testing lasering a PCB board? Quite curious how this would work out.

Hello i have an issue. So i did everything you did and then i was about to import the .nc into ugs and run it BUT when i clicked the start button it gave me some errors first: something with M6 second: something with java.lang unexpected Exception. My machine is 3018 pro. Thanks in advance.

You need a spindle that will accept a floating head. That way you program the z axis to cut a couple of mm deeper than needed and the floating head will govern the actual depth of cut.

i am curious, did you bu the extra anti-backlash nuts from Sienci? do you think that would have made much difference?

Nice 'show off' project to highlight the capacities of the router, however practically the good old method of print the layout, transfer it to the PCB using UV cured varnish, and etch it using iron (3) chloride is easier for DIY. Using the router to then drill the holes instead of manually, however, oooh yeah!

Man, I wish you could get 8mm ballscrews like you can get acme trapezoidal lead screws. That would make tiny CNC machines like this SO much better. You also would need a spindle with better manufacturing tolerances though.

the sad thing about mill collets is depending on the thing they go into the tolerances are way too big, its better to either have a dedicated machine with a standard applied to it and the bits to go into them, or to get a flex shaft with remote chuck that has no play. this "CNC" would be great for a hobbiest working with plywood but not necessarily milled circuit boards. Tech2c has a decent setup now with his new all metal chuck to look at for a where to start. that spindel you showed at the end of the video will be a huge upgrade over that makita despite the slower speed.

On some machines like mine, when you tighten the collet, it draws the bit up into the collet slightly so that method you suggested for zero-ing the Z axis isn't so reliable.

wow nice machine!

in my mortal job i use tiny meta L shape things that hace a very precise measure , the google translate is gauge, the original name in Spanish is galga. Nice work ;)

01:35 lol. Tutorial was awesome full of details.

Use a Multimeter in the shortdetection Mode for setting the z height.

Nice. This might be pretty useful.

Sorry for this, but it is nice to see you strougle with the Same issues Like i did 😂 For the Drills i recommend to mill it. So the troughholes are wide enaugh for the components. For the traces, you can make this much wider, yours are tiny.

It's been a spell since you made this video, but do you know if it makes any difference if the copper plating is thicker or thinner for heavy use high temperature components?

Those engraver bits work just fine. You set the dept of cut at -0.1mm. Thats too deep considering that the copper coating is just 35 microns thick. I set my depth to -0.045mm and I get gorgeous PCBs with a pad pitch of as low as 0.5mm. Also you need to slow down the feed to around 75-100mm/min so that you don't snap off the tiny tip of those bits.

If your board is running marlin you can use an alligator clip to the PCB, an aligator clip to the bit, and both connected to z-min and use G29. (FIX MOUNT PROBE option)

Maybe I should become a professional cnc machine operator so i can get paid to watch these things go all day :)

24:00 Am I missing something with Flatcam here? Everytime I try it the finished milled board has tracks that are totally unusable thin. I've tried with 0.2 and 0.1 V bits, 0.5m end mils and lots of different cutting depths, but every time flatcam seems to cut the track "inside" leaving very thin traces, rather than cut outside into the waste leaving a nice thick and usable track. For me its not producing anything usable. I don't seem to have vibration or runout as the track width isn't noticeably wider than the cutting tip.

Can you recommend Drill Bits for this? Thanks in advance!

E2E: bCNC with auto bed level. WD40 the surface before milling. 30degree bits don't break as easy. Chinese endoscope camera for 2 side alignment.