Greetings:
I have been playing with unusual materials for use on my Avid Pro 4x8. I am trying to build a clock milled from a 6"x12" piece of slate. The clock numbers will be edison filaments (LED filaments). But where I’m stuck is machining a printed circuit board. I plan on using Kicad to layout the circuit, then pass the gerber files to Flatcam which will convert them to G-Code. Has anyone done this? What header do I need so I can load it into my Avid CNC?
You can do really basic PTH but nothing any greater.
To do something basic with 6mil traces you require a minimum 0.001" accuracy and repeatability.
I have two PCB Mills and they are just in another galaxy when compared to the Avid. Just the ringing alone in an Avid would wipe out huge swaths of traces.
But simple 1 millimeter features (not to be mistaken for mils) would be doable at a very slow speed.
You would need to map the surface of the PCB to accurately mill it. And even then you would have to dig a little deeper to make sure the copper is removed.
PS. I have a lot of money wrapped up in Harvey 1/100" end mills
Getting good use of my new phone’s macro feature, this is a 1/8th inch used to flatten the aluminum spoil surface between batches and the 1/100" Harvey 2 flute ;
Thanks. Great information. Would a laser be much better and then chemically etch?
Or am I left with sending the plans to China and get the boards made by the pro’s?
I would go buy one of the 8k SLA printers and take the vat off it and do the UV method. Plenty of YouTube content on this method.
I use that method now because those little 1/100" jobs are expensive as crap and you run through a billion of them if you are cutting FR5 boards like I do.
For quick low rez boards just do the converted 8k SLA. You will still need the end mills to do the vias and PTH and to cut the boards to size. None of those task would I run on an Avid machine as they require precision as well.
