routing

10 Articles

Milling PCBs With An Off-The-Shelf CNC

February 28, 2016 by 23 Comments

There’s a lot of little things that can go wrong before you get great results out of a process. We like to read build logs to learn from the mistakes made. [Marc Liyanage] bought a Nomad CNC machine from Carbide3d, and after a bit of learning has gotten some very nice PCBs out of it.

The first trip up he encountered was not setting the design rules in EagleCAD to check for gaps too small for his router bit. After he sorted that, and worked around an issue with Carbide not supporting R values for curves; instead opting for IJK, he made a nice TQFP to DIP break out board.

The next board was a more complicated double-sided job. He cleverly had the machine drill two holes all the way through the PCB to give him a space for two alignment pins. Unfortunately this didn’t work out exactly as planned and he had a slight misalignment with some of the via holes. It looked alright and he began assembling. To his dismay, the clearances were off again. It was a bit of deja vu for us.

We’ve made lots of boards on a CNC machine, and can attest to the task’s finicky nature. It’s certainly quicker than the photoresist technique for boards with lots of little holes. It will take someone quite a few tries before they start having more successes than failures, but it’s very rewarding.

Next Generation Arduino Manufacturing Problems?

October 1, 2010 by 119 Comments

[The Moogle] just got his new Arduino Uno; wow, that was fast. What should have been a happy unboxing turned sour when he took a close look at the board. It seems that it exhibits several examples of sloppy fabrication. The the lower-left image shows unclean board routing, a discolored edge, and a sharp tooth sticking out from the corner. The shield header shown in the upper left is not flush with the board, resulting in a weaker physical union and a crooked connection. There are vias that look like they’re not be centered in the solder mask, and areas where raw copper is exposed.

It saddens us to see this because the original Arduino boards were so well manufactured. Keep in mind that this may be an isolated case, and as of yet the company hasn’t been given the chance to swap out the board for one that has passed a more rigorous quality control inspection. But if you’ve already ordered one of your own, take a close look and make sure you’re satisfied with it upon arrival.

Not sure what we mean by next generation Arduino? Take a look at the new hardware that was recently unveiled.

Update: Here’s a direct response from the Arduino blog.

Update #2: [Massimo Banzi], one of the founders of Arduino, took the time to comment on this post. It details the organization’s willingness to remedy situations like [The Moogle] encountered and also links to the recent Arduino blog post.

Hackaday Links: Sunday, November 29

November 29, 2009 by 47 Comments

Sometimes we wonder if we’re making good choices with PCB layout when using EagleCAD. Watch how the pros do it with a video of an hour-long Adafruit PCB layout session compressed into seven minutes.

[Elijah] documented his RepStrap build. This is a chicken-or-egg project in that RepStrap machines are built without the assistance of an already existing RepRap.

Here’s an ASUS concept from CeBIT this year for a laptop that has two touch screens and no physical keyboard. Isn’t this just the DS project we saw this week but in a nice case?

[James] conjured up a physical realization of the Spinning Wheel of Death for an art exhibit. We can’t stop smiling when looking at this artful hack.

I’m sure nobody will raise an eyebrow when you pop out that roll of duct-tape and affix your phone to the airplane window. That’s what [floe] did to make this airline flight time-lapse video with an Android phone. Aren’t you supposed to turn off all electronics for takeoff?