Normal Cameo software drags the knife to create the contour cut. Because of this all corners and thin features are deformed. Try github.com/pmonta/gerber2graphtec instead. It splits the pads into individual lines and aligns the knife in the cut direction before performing the cut.
@@Tusharshukla1992 From my experience no. I was cutting in a 125u mylar foil. Thinner foils may work better. Did you see pmonta.com/blog/2012/12/25/smt-stencil-cutting/ ?
Nice idea! I have one of the cheap chinese 24 inch vinyl cutters that I use for signage stuff, will probably get one of the sticky mats and give this a go.
Actually I did get some 100mm wide copper tape on ebay and tried to use it to do hacky prototype PCBs by cutting the traces out on the vinyl cutter. I had problems with the blade ripping the foil to pieces - spent a day fiddling with settings but it only seemed to be practical for big stuff (any traces smaller than 1mm wide got shredded). I have heard of people doing this successfully though so I think it's something to do with the tape. The adhesive was certainly a lot less tacky than normal sign vinyl so that might be why...
I thought you used a K40 laser for your stencils Mike ? As for pasting, the biggest difference I could see between your pasting process and mine was that my decorating scrapers have blue rather than green handles !
Can You use this thing to make a PCB? Cut out the traces and pads, spray the thing with something, then peel off the vinyl and etch it. Kind of curious if it would work
+1 on gerber2graphtec. We use the basic GUI on windows with great success..using the 'Portrait' model from Silhouette Other Tips: - We place an A4 page under the sheet fixed with spray adhesive. The tiny cutouts stick to the paper and there is much less damage to the mat underneath. - We use 1mm & 1.25mm transparencies and the cuts seem to be a lot better that Mike's (Maybe your sheets are too thin???) - If some of the small cuts don't fall out, we just use sellotape to remove them. For the price really worth the investment.
we use the....Silhouette Portrait...which should cost less than the one used by Mike in the video. I don't know if the cricut is supported...I don't think it is.????
Isn't there a way to print the solder? With all the 3d printers on the market i would expect the technology exists. It would take a lot of time but this is also time consuming.
As an aside, I was under the impression that solder paste is perishable and has a short shelf life. Noticing your huge pot of it there, I'm wondering if you really go through that much of it, or if what I had learned about the stuff is mistaken. Thanks!
Varies by brand but generally lasts for several years sealed in fridge. Once opened it can dry out but you can add liquid flux to keep it going as long as it's not gone rock hard. I get through one tub in maybe 6-9 months and rarely scrap more than 10% of the dregs at the end.
could you post your cut settings (speeds, pressure, overcut)? I have the same machine standing around but never thought using it for this kind of work. Great video
Didn't change any settings from default - I think it was set for paper. I think it worked better this time with current Silhouette software than the software that came with it a couple of years ago so could be they've made improvements,
@@AureliusR I used to hand soldier relay boards for a living. 136 relays X 6 pins each X 12 boards per bin X 5 bins a day. 46,800 connections a day 5 days a week for three years. So, hand soldering that little one off LED board is exactly how I would do it. But I'm not going to attack anybody who doesn't have the skills or patients to do that for looking for a "short cut".
@@AureliusR the relays were through hole components being added to a high density double sided SMT PWA. 0603 components and gold plated contacts for squirt pins crammed in between the 0.1" by 0.4" CTC pins of the relays. All the work had to be done under a microscope. Contamination of the gold squirt pin pads during hand soldering would scrap the board. A later assignment for that same company had me hand placing and soldering 0603 ferrite beads into millions of logic probe heads. By comparison, the logic probes were much simpler as I didn't have to deal with any no contact zones in the work area.
LED's are pronounced like "ELL-EE-DEESS" saying it "LEADS" was a mistake I made when I was like 8 years old until someone corrected me that it is an acronmym and is supposed to be pronounced as individual letters NOT as a word. Sorry I just had to tell you it's painful to hear you say it like "Lead" as in a lead pencil.
Normal Cameo software drags the knife to create the contour cut. Because of this all corners and thin features are deformed. Try github.com/pmonta/gerber2graphtec instead. It splits the pads into individual lines and aligns the knife in the cut direction before performing the cut.
This is good advice, (using a tangential cutter), but what he got from a silly scrapbooker quality cutter wasn't bad!
Can we cut down to 0.2 mm with the software you mentioned and cameo cutter combined?
@@Tusharshukla1992 From my experience no. I was cutting in a 125u mylar foil. Thinner foils may work better. Did you see pmonta.com/blog/2012/12/25/smt-stencil-cutting/ ?
I was also in for some pick and place action!!! Subject of the video was pretty interesting, but now I'm invested in seeing that board finished!
Did shoot some but decided it was a bit boring so didn't keep it- white LEDs on white PCB.
That's so creative compared to my job.
Nice idea! I have one of the cheap chinese 24 inch vinyl cutters that I use for signage stuff, will probably get one of the sticky mats and give this a go.
Actually I did get some 100mm wide copper tape on ebay and tried to use it to do hacky prototype PCBs by cutting the traces out on the vinyl cutter. I had problems with the blade ripping the foil to pieces - spent a day fiddling with settings but it only seemed to be practical for big stuff (any traces smaller than 1mm wide got shredded).
I have heard of people doing this successfully though so I think it's something to do with the tape. The adhesive was certainly a lot less tacky than normal sign vinyl so that might be why...
anyone else want to see a time lapse of him placing all those LEDs?
I was certainly hoping there was going to be one at the end!
I want to see a time lapse of his PICK AND PLACE MACHINE placing all those LEDs...
But wouldn't by hand be more interesting?
I think he has a pnp, if I remember correctly.
He does, a pretty nice one too. Did a video on it years ago I think.
I thought you used a K40 laser for your stencils Mike ?
As for pasting, the biggest difference I could see between your pasting process and mine was that my decorating scrapers have blue rather than green handles !
Have you ever tried one of those cheap laser cutters from ebay?
It would be interesting to know how they do with solder mask stencils.
rocketman221projects works, with some minor pad size tuning I achieve quite usable stencils down to 0.3mm, depending on type of plastic film.
I wanted to see how you were going to finish the leds and board
+mikeselectricstuff I really hoped you will include at least some video from your pick and place machine doing all the placement.
Really good result I'd say!
Can You use this thing to make a PCB? Cut out the traces and pads, spray the thing with something, then peel off the vinyl and etch it. Kind of curious if it would work
probably but photoetching is probably going to be easier
what might be interesting is to replace the knife with a uv laser diode and ....
I tried doing what you said and it worked down to 0603 and SOP packages. I used Silhouette CAMEO 2.
@@di4352 0603, that's impressive!
Do you think a laser cut plastic sheet might work better?
You might want this : github.com/pmonta/gerber2graphtec it'll take gerber and drive the cutter directly while maintaining dimensional accuracy.
+1 on gerber2graphtec.
We use the basic GUI on windows with great success..using the 'Portrait' model from Silhouette
Other Tips:
- We place an A4 page under the sheet fixed with spray adhesive. The tiny cutouts stick to the paper and there is much less damage to the mat underneath.
- We use 1mm & 1.25mm transparencies and the cuts seem to be a lot better that Mike's (Maybe your sheets are too thin???)
- If some of the small cuts don't fall out, we just use sellotape to remove them.
For the price really worth the investment.
What cutter do you use? I have an older cricut I have been thinking about using for this for a long time
we use the....Silhouette Portrait...which should cost less than the one used by Mike in the video.
I don't know if the cricut is supported...I don't think it is.????
Ahh...those are pretty cheap though so could pick one up if the mood strikes me. Thanks.
I've been using a Silhouette Portrait, with nice results.
Sample: goo.gl/photos/ZKvnSGrVxr8QczTK9
Isn't there a way to print the solder? With all the 3d printers on the market i would expect the technology exists. It would take a lot of time but this is also time consuming.
Actually, he stressed over and over that it WASN'T time consuming. He literally exported the DXF straight into the vinyl cutter software.
What kind of manual solder paste dispenser are you using to patch things up at the end (7:31)?
As an aside, I was under the impression that solder paste is perishable and has a short shelf life. Noticing your huge pot of it there, I'm wondering if you really go through that much of it, or if what I had learned about the stuff is mistaken. Thanks!
Varies by brand but generally lasts for several years sealed in fridge. Once opened it can dry out but you can add liquid flux to keep it going as long as it's not gone rock hard. I get through one tub in maybe 6-9 months and rarely scrap more than 10% of the dregs at the end.
+1 adding liquid flux really brings crusty paste back to life
please show the finished board at some point.
dude how long didn't take to place all those less???
About 90 mins
Lens on whatever you're using to film the last bit needs a good clean.
You're not wrong there. I thought my eyes were going crazy, but it was just dirt on the lens.
could you post your cut settings (speeds, pressure, overcut)? I have the same machine standing around but never thought using it for this kind of work.
Great video
Didn't change any settings from default - I think it was set for paper. I think it worked better this time with current Silhouette software than the software that came with it a couple of years ago so could be they've made improvements,
that's a lot of LEDs!
Thats a lot of work for matrix that is not even RGB.
Oh so you'd like to solder it by hand, would you? What a tosser
@@AureliusR I used to hand soldier relay boards for a living. 136 relays X 6 pins each X 12 boards per bin X 5 bins a day. 46,800 connections a day 5 days a week for three years. So, hand soldering that little one off LED board is exactly how I would do it. But I'm not going to attack anybody who doesn't have the skills or patients to do that for looking for a "short cut".
@@royponpon1755 Were they through-hole?
@@AureliusR the relays were through hole components being added to a high density double sided SMT PWA. 0603 components and gold plated contacts for squirt pins crammed in between the 0.1" by 0.4" CTC pins of the relays. All the work had to be done under a microscope. Contamination of the gold squirt pin pads during hand soldering would scrap the board. A later assignment for that same company had me hand placing and soldering 0603 ferrite beads into millions of logic probe heads. By comparison, the logic probes were much simpler as I didn't have to deal with any no contact zones in the work area.
@@royponpon1755 Why on earth was that done by hand? Automated pick and place has been able to do jobs like that for decades.
god bless robots ! )
2:10 , 1 mil pitch? i think you mean 1mm :D
LED's are pronounced like "ELL-EE-DEESS" saying it "LEADS" was a mistake I made when I was like 8 years old until someone corrected me that it is an acronmym and is supposed to be pronounced as individual letters NOT as a word. Sorry I just had to tell you it's painful to hear you say it like "Lead" as in a lead pencil.
Sir, it's time to clean the workshop.