[jlnading]

Hello all. Well I've built a cnc plasma table and 4 3d printers. My next task I want to take on is building a diy open source desktop printer, to print traces on and drill holes into, for the manufacturing of PCB's. Anyone done this or have any experience on this? I would be very interested in hearing from you. I would like to stay with the arduino mega 2560, ramps 1.4 and stepper drivers used with the ramps board, steppers nema 17. Opinions welcome, thanks Jeff.

[Jay C]

When you say "print circuit boards" what do you mean. Most DIY project use a chemical etch process, in this forum, we use a mechanical etching process. When I read your post I'm imagining silkscreen process like they use for flexible circuits and membrane control panels.

So, what are you imagining?

-Jay

[jlnading]

Well what I have in mind is instead of drilling/drawing the circuit board out by hand, like I have been doing for years, etching the board chemically then placing components for soldering. I would like to design and build a cnc router/printer that I can place blank copper clad boards into, to first drill holes into for placement of components, then draw the printed circuit in exact relation to the holes drilled for chemical etching. Could also be made to route, drill and print multiples of small pcb's out of a larger blank at the same time, just break the small pcb's off the larger blank after the process. This is my idea in a nut shell. Thank you for your reply, Jeff.

[Jay C]

Like this: Printing circuit boards on Mendel | UltiMachine

[jlnading]

Exactly so, thanks.

[doorknob]

How about using a Shapeoko?

ShapeOko.com ? View topic - Success!! milling PCB... First PCB is and ARDUINO!!

[BobVanDyke]

If you rout out a piece of glass filled plastic where you want the traces, have it copper plated and sand off the top. This leaves the deeper traces. We used this process to make 3D circuit boards.

We used Ryton plastic but it was molded. Ryton tends to crack if you sand off the surface.

Doesn't sound as good as Jay C's solution but something to think about.

[jlnading]

Yes. I really don't want to groove/route into the blank copper clad board, I only want to drill and do the art work [printed circuit] on the surface so it can be etched chemically. This is my goal through cnc. Using the Arduino 2560 as stated above. Thanks for the replies, Jeff.

[vegipete]

Using an old inkjet printer might be a nice simple way to go. Then do the drilling afterwards.

[packrat]

If it is drilled first, what keeps the etch fluid from coming through the holes and destroying the pads?

[jlnading]

I was thinking of parting out an old laser jet, or doing a mod on one, but the cnc part would need separate steppers, great minds think alike, thanks, Jeff.

[jlnading]

Well this would be the art work or print, it's actually the ink from the print that protects the pads or the part you don't want to be etched.

[lwill]

I tried something similar.
I coated a plain bare board with a thin protective coating*, then drilled it and used a scribe point to "engrave" around the traces instead of milling without removing and needing to realign. I would then etch it in FeCl. I did this because my spindle had too much run out for a mill bit (the scribe was held in a ridged holder) and I was tired of using expensive photo boards.
Yes, it under cut the holes slightly, as well as the traces which was actually a help in widening the trace spacing slightly.
The pressure I used to scribe with effected the depth into the copper and would effect the width, so it was a bit touchy, either it came out great or horrible. I could offset and run again for better consistency / width. A benefit was very little material to etch away.
I used the surface probing / auto height method to keep the depth as constant as possible, and with a bit of trial and error got pretty good results. I could get spacing smaller than would be possible using a mill bit, but one imperfection would cause a short that was a bear to track down.
I could run at much higher speeds than milling, but the time savings was offset by the etching time.
I have since replaced my spindle and doing straight milling.

* My first attempts I used a pre-sensitized board that I developed without exposing it first, but that kind of defeated the purpose of trying to use cheaper board stock I was trying for. I ended up using a DIY spin coater with "Future" floor finish as a resist. I still do this to the boards before milling as it protects from oxidizing and it is so thin it can be soldered though with out removing.

[jlnading]

Thank you for posting, very interesting. I'm just now slowly acquiring parts to build the cnc machine, I will also be casting the gantry supports and what ever other parts I will be needing out of aluminum then machine them as needed. I think I'm going to make something like a small desktop routing system, if it doesn't work for pcb's at least I will be able to use it for routing.