Calling all PCB milling wizards

I looked into the production of PCB (HA!). The two choices are machining or chemical. (I have purchased both options.)

Chemicals will be messy and potentially hazardous, but would be faster for larger productions. You can print on transparent vellum and expose your treated PCB with bright light, then the rest resembles home-photo lab process.

Machining you can get your results quicker for small runs/prototyping but like @BobJewell mentions, precision will be an issue. And remember, you are milling copper faced fiberglass board. That’s nothing to sneeze at. (…get it? sneeze from the dust.)

Alas, I have yet to crank out a PCB due to a lack of electronics project worthy of the effort, yet. I wanted to share what I did discover so far.

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I used Estlcam to map inconsistencies in the PCB I cut for a friend. I already had Estlcam but it’s really cheap and would be worth it if your friend didn’t just want to make one PCB.

I’m sure someone posted a video of the Estlcam guy probing a pc mouse then engraving onto the curved surface. I only did this once around a year ago so I’m afraid I can’t really remember many details

Edit - here it is

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Chili pepper and prob. Fr2 boards.
Machine a pocket, secure the fr2 pcb, prob, cut.

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I forgot about that feature of Chili Pepper.

Hello, everyone, It’s me @FaisalMal, Sorry for being late to answer the questions and explain my issue.

simply I want to carve a circuit board that called PCB using X-Carve the advance one that had the X-controller.

I tried so many things and I have 2 options but for each way, I have a problem.

The first way is using of course Easel, there I can import the SVG file but there’s a choice that I have to select, It’s the outside carve but an error comes to me.

and the second way is using Chilipeppr.com I can import the G-code file there so easily.

but the issue here on Chilipeppr.com
is that the browser not communicating with the X-Carve.

Thank you for helping me.
wishing you all good day.

There is an application that will allow you to map your carve to a uneven surface.
The only problem is that it will not work with Easel. :confused:
The guy who makes it frequents here and you can talk to him about his tool.
Its called Gcode Ripper. It will allow mapping and then your carve will be next to perfect.
http://www.scorchworks.com/Gcoderipper/gcoderipper.html

Again This is only if your using Mach3 and I believe it works with a linux varient. (can’t remember)

PDB’s are uneven and trying to carve them will be a problem if your doing tight small traces.
Its one of the reasons I went to Mach3. I wanted to be able to carve on curved surfaces and eventually PCB’s

The Mach3 is not connected to the X-carve why I don’t know, It’s the same with chilipeppr.com not communicating with the X-carve.

For chili pepper to work with the x-carve you need to run serial port json Server GitHub - johnlauer/serial-port-json-server: A serial port JSON websocket server for Windows, Mac, Linux, Raspberry Pi, or BeagleBone Black that lets you communicate with your serial port from a web application. This enables web apps to be written that can communicate with your local serial device such as an Arduino, CNC controller, or any device that communicates over the serial port.

I run it, and It’s connected to each other but when I want to make move manually it does not move check the last picture click it to see the full picture.

Did you try the baud rate 115200 ?

around May 2016

with what ?

In chilipeppr where you connect. It shows 9600

mine is set to 9600 do i need to change to 115200 on chilipeppr.com and the usb port?
because i checked my serial port it’s 9600 .

i will try later because it’s very late it’s about 4 a.m. now

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I’m from Saudi Arabia

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Thank you, Mr. @PhilJohnson and Mr. @CarstenDegenhardt:

for your help, It’s working now with Chilipeppr.com

But one last question, Do I need to do the Auto Leveling to make PCB or I just start?

Thank you and wish a Nice day.

Sorry, Mr. Philjohnson:

I ran into an issue that my Z Axis not moving and I’m sure that the pulley for the ACME Lead Screw
but I don’t know which one I should buy the GT2 or XML and what size I should buy?

I’m sorry for bothering you a lot.
Thank you and wish a nice day.

I hope you see the picture and the video on the link It shows the issue.

video

Thank you very much.

It looks like your pulley is loose. Make sure the 2 little grub screws are still there. Before you retighten them put some blue loctite on so they can’t get loose again

It looks like your pulley is upside down Assembly instructions