[Khalid]

It is shipping me at HK post for my double sided board total price comes out 21US dollar. So not bad for 2US dollar/board with shipping.

[Khalid]

By the way i etch and drill my own board not using CNC... That was first time i ordered the boards to PCBWay.. I checked the review on youtube and people are happy.

[arvidj]

Just FYI ... I've used this site PCBShopper to comparison shop for pcb prices.

[fobi]

I use etching
for this amount of time

[A_Camera]

I use etching
for this amount of time

Such small PCB is quicker milled on a CNC than etched unless you make them in large volumes.

https://youtu.be/EDK46k3F1f0

Here is a video showing when I make a larger PCB. It takes 11 minutes, 2 pass milling and drilling. My results are so good that I could have done it in one pass only, and the accuracy suits SMD as well.There is no way you can do that in 11 minutes if you calculate the time for the chemical development and etching, the preparation of chemicals, the after work, the cleaning and the drilling. Manual drilling is a PITA, avoiding chemicals is really nice. I can make PCBs in my normal home office environment (normally I use a dust shoe) and that would NEVER be possible if I used the aggressive chemicals necessary for etching. I have done a lot of etching some years ago and it is really nice to not have to do that any more. Nasty stuff... the fumes are very bad for for your health and for ferrous material in the room.

[109jb]

The thread has taken a turn from what the OP originally asked. To get back to his questions, I think you should take a look at grbl, which is an open source firmware for the Arduino that can run a 3 axis machine using step and direction inputs. That combined with some low cost stepper drivers would get you going. Grbl is normally used with a computer of some kind via USB link for the interface. You can, and I have, use a second Arduino with a LCD display as the interface, making the whole thing self contained. I went away from that because I got a hand me down netbook that works fine.

As for stepper drivers, I have used the cheapest TB 6600 drivers with good success. The ones I have used are the ones with the circuit board exposed and no case and I last bought 3 of them for$18. They are good to about 3A and 36V. Got what you are planning I think they would work fine.

Good luck

Sent from my Z958 using Tapatalk

[fobi]

May be you are right, A_Camera.
I intend to try GRBL anyway, I am waiting the Arduino and the drivers. So far I checked it virtually :

[A_Camera]

May be you are right, A_Camera.

I know I am.

...been there, done that, got the T-shirt...

[fobi]

Workflow

Of course, before milling the PCB the circuit must be designed, routed and the G-code must be generated and so on. The work flow I am using is the following:

1. Schematic design
2. Board layout
3. Routing
4. G-code generation
5. Adding text traces to g-code
6. Editing g-code to generate multi pass milling
7. Test drawing
8. Levelled G-code generation (not always)
9. Milling
10. Drilling

This is from your blog, A_Camera
3 operation more than etching way. I don't use Eagle, so I have to find another way to get the gcode - from dxf or gerbers.
Milling is suitable for some kind of boards even without cnc :

Attachment 354842

I did that with laser pointer attached to the table. The dot was moving over the drawing

[A_Camera]

This is from your blog, A_Camera
3 operation more than etching way. I don't use Eagle, so I have to find another way to get the gcode - from dxf or gerbers.

I don't know which operations you mean, some are not necessary, but I do it. My guess is you mean:

G-code generation (this is necessary if you are milling PCB)
Adding text traces to G-code (this is an option, and can perhaps even be automatically generated from Eagle)
Editing G-code to generate multi pass milling (not doing multi pass any more because it is not necessary. Copper layers are 35 micron and I mill down to 40 micron)
Test drawing (this can be discarded since most people don't care and not doing it, it is also not necessary, just an extra step I take to check before milling)
Levelled G-code generation (this is something I stopped doing because my CNC is levelled to accuracy needed)
Milling (this is necessary if you are milling PCB)


That's actually 6 operations you don't have to do if you are etching... but only the underlined two of those six which are really necessary if you are milling .

Never the less, my point was that it is faster than etching, not that it has less operations. The PCB in the example took 11 minutes including all the extra steps (not levelled because it was not necessary) but including the test drawing - AND - the drilling, which in itself takes at least 11 minutes (including preparation and positioning) even on such small board if you do it manually on a drill press. Drilling is normally ignored and not taken into account when people speak out for etching...

Like I said: ...been there, done that, got the T-shirt... I etched many PCBs in my life, first time almost forty years ago, and going from the chemical process I see as a step forward, just like in photography. The possibility to avoid all those chemicals is great in my opinion, and since the time it takes to make small series or prototypes is actually less (assuming you take ALL the time ALL the actions require) there is not a single doubt in my mind which is better. Also, even for more advanced PCB, even if it may take longer to mill, that time is not really important since it is 100% automatic, you start the machine and it stops when ready, so I can go for a walk, drink coffee or eat dinner during that period.

Note that it really doesn't matter what people do and prefer, it is really up to them and I couldn't care less, but when time is compared you can not just take the parameters which suits your needs to prove your points, you must take every one of them into account, even things like washing up and cleaning the mess after etching.

Milling is suitable for some kind of boards even without cnc :

Attachment 354842

I did that with laser pointer attached to the table. The dot was moving over the drawing

Yes, but maybe the results are not really comparable... and may not match under closer inspection the quality of what I get. Never the less, if it works for you, that's fine.

BTW, What is you definition of CNC? Mine is "Computer Numeric Control" and my guess is that your machine is controlled by a computer so it is a CNC. It looks like a Proxxon coordinate table, and my guess is that you have added some steppers which are connected to a driver and some sort of motion controller and a computer, so it is a CNC by definition. However, that coordinate table is not very accurate, but that's a different thing. So, unless you guide the machine manually, yours is a CNC as well.