PCBs in Two Hours? Zack Sucks at CNC
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- Опубликовано: 26 сен 2024
- Can Zack stop smashing his bits long enough to make a circuit board?
Get your own Snapmaker CNC + Printer + Laser: shop.snapmaker...
I called this the A350, but it's actually the AT model! Either way, it's also available on Amazon now! www.amazon.com...
3D printing is fast. Fabricating circuit boards is not. If we can rapidly prototype circuit boards right here in the Lab, I might be able to escape the bottomless 3D-printing pit of my own creation. The only problem: Milling circuit boards turns out to be way harder than I expected...
PSA: Using FR-4 was a bad choice. I should have used FR-1 (phenolic or bakelite) boards instead - they're safer for long-term exposure.
My free printable models from this episode:
🧩 Slopboard drilling jig: bit.ly/3u90OH8
💨 Snapmaker Vacuum Port + Clips: bit.ly/3thsbza
🔧 CNC Bit Tray UwU: bit.ly/3thsbza
Supplies and tools:
🔩 Tiny end mills: amzn.to/3MGiKRA
📍 Alignment pins: amzn.to/3I64TAy
🤏 0.8mm drills: amzn.to/3t1INep
🔪 Sketchy SainSmart 0.1mm V-bits: amzn.to/3ML7h3w
🏹 Decent Huhao Dual-Flute V-bits: amzn.to/3I2XHoP
🗜 Collets for tiny mills: amzn.to/3J3UxCJ
💎 Diamond pattern mills + more: amzn.to/3sZqJl5
💨 Hose for chip extractor: amzn.to/3t3Em2Q
🛹 Double-sided copper-clad FR4: amzn.to/3MGj8j0
📼 Carpet tape (very sticky): amzn.to/36cYoil
🔩 Tiny rivets: www.ebay.com/i...
How to Mill Circuit Boards with the Snapmaker:
0) If possible, print a dust extractor and hook it up to a powerful vacuum with a true HEPA filter. Open windows.
1) Print a slopboard jig. Use it to mark holes on a one-foot square of 3/4" MDF.
2) Drill 13/64" holes on the marks and countersink.
3) Remove your Snapmaker's slopboard and install the new one.
4) Use a 1/8" flat end mill to hog a big ol' square into it. 0.5mm depth, 200mm/min feed, one pass should be enough.
5) Slap some carpet tape on you copper clad and stick it to the bed.
6) Export Gerbers with 14 mil trace and space, 0.8mm minimum drill.
7) Import top copper, bottom copper, and drills into FlatCam. Note that you may need to scale the drills down to 0.1.
8) Use FlatCam's double-sided tool to mirror the bottom copper and generate alignment holes. Position the holes at least 5/8" from the board edge.
9) Create a drilling or milling job from the alignment holes, to fit your alignment pins. Make the holes as tight as you can fit the dowels into.
10) Generate a CNC job from the alignment drill/mill job. Make sure to put G21 in the End G-Code. I recommend 0.5" depth, 0.1" stepdown, 10in/min feed. Save the resulting G-code file with a .cnc extension.
11) Open the G-code in a text editor and change the line F10 to G1 F10.
12) Install your selected drill or end mill, zero, and execute the job. DO NOT change the home position or remove the board.
13) Create drill and mill jobs from the Excellon file. I recommend drilling all holes 0.04" and smaller with your 0.8mm bit, and milling the rest with a 1mm diamond-pattern mill. Depth is the thiccness of your board plus 0.05", stepdown all the way for drills and 0.1" for mills, 5in/min feed.
14) Generate CNC jobs for the drills and mills, generate G-code, change the F[number] line to G1 F[number], mount and home the appropriate drills or mills, and run the jobs.
15) Install a V-bit or micro end mill and home Z very, very carefully. DO NOT change the X or Y origins. Check the Z in multiple places with a slip of paper to make sure the board is flat. Your Z origin should be at the lowest point on the board.
16) Generate isolation routing for the top layer. A 20-degree 0.1mm bit effectively has an 0.012" diameter. I found that one width pass was OK. Look for shorts that the tool can't cut!
17) Generate a CNC job from the isolation routing. I got the best results with an 0.002" depth, 5"/min feed, one pass. Travel Z and spindle speed are irrelevant.
18) Output G-code, change F to G1 F, import into Luban.
19) Apply a thin layer of cutting fluid or light machine oil to the copper clad. Be careful not to let it soak into the slopboard.
20) Run the top copper job.
21) Remove the copper clad from the slopboard, peel off the tape, degrease thoroughly, apply fresh tape to the newly-cut side, and use dowels to pin copper clad to slopboard upside-down. Remove the pins and zero the tool again!
22) Grease up the board, generate the bottom isolation G-code, and run it.
23) Swap in an end mill. Generate cutout G-code FROM THE BOTTOM COPPER, NOT THE TOP COPPER! Use the same settings as the alignment holes, and run the job.
24) Remove board, carefully cut out with moistened tools, clean board, and populate!
25) Use damp rags to thoroughly clean all fiberglass dust.
Interference SFX by Partners in Rhyme
Other SFX from www.zapsplat.com
You can also make custom circuits with a exacto-knife. Don't let not having a cnc hold you back.
You can also connect your components with soldered wires. Don't let not having an exacto-knife hold you back.
Yep, I did this once (around year 2000). The PCB was approx 1x3cm, double side, the components (I think that were 2-3 resistors, 1 or 2 capacitors, one transistor and one small audio output transformer) were THD and some of them I mounted as SMD (resistors); it was a mosquito repellent audio oscillator and worked at first try. All was made by hand, from design to drilling holes, with no tools other than a soldering iron.
I make it to win a bet and I won it.
@@billmckillip1561 You can also connect your components by twisting wires together all janky-like and securing it with hot glue. Don't let not having a soldering iron hold you back.
You can also use Crayola and draw things on your walls and pretend they are working by magic. Don't let not having a CNC hold you back.
@@Lozoot2 Components? You were living in paradise! In my days, we didn't have any components. Different kinds of soil and our own bodily secretions is what we had to work with. And we were happy!
Dude you’re a madman. Love this video.
That Sound of Silence remix did not disappoint.
Thanks for running this machine for this purpose. Very informative. And entertaining as usual.
I appreciated it and will recall it warmly
It was...exceptional
The song was good, but the thing that made me mildly spit-take my cereal (not some kind of weird euphemism) was when the eyebrow waggling escalated to ridiculous levels at 6:20.
@@slartimus Zack is ridiculous, and I love him for it.
I just wanted to toss out that I'm here for Zack not for a category. Your videos and lives give me motivation and inspiration to work on my own projects. Follow the dopamine and takes us along!
I fully agree! Zack is so fun to watch
same, I like watching the 3d printing and what have you but I like him specifically bc he's funny and relatable
making a lot of snapped tools with the snapmaker, call me unsurprised 😂
It's a genius marketing strategy, it guarantees you never forget the company name...
Great work. I’ve CNC’d many boards similar to how you did it. I finally bought a Bantam Tools PCBMill and it’s like night and day difference. The biggest advantage is the software. 1000 times better than flatcam and designed to work with the machine. Plus it mills holes not drills. If you ever get a chance to buy one(since the one I bought is discontinued and replaced by their new design) I highly recommend it. That board you had could be completed in roughly 30 minutes. For vias I just solder wire to the pad on each side. Glad you discovered small end mills. I use 1/64 for detail, 1/32 for clearing and 1/8 for cutting the outline.
Great video.
uh, in flatcam, you can choose to mill big holes.
The machine we see here is clearly capable of milling PCBs. Buying a machine just for the software seems a bit lunatic to me.
Even though I haven't played tf2 in years it holds enough of a special place in my heart for me to feel personally attacked by the straight facts you spat.
The worst part is I 100% agree.
Wow, that was an expensive board to make with all of the bits you broke. But to get the results you want, you have to experiment! Bravo, may you have learned from your experience! Happy days and model on! 😎
FINALLY! A multi-purpose machine that ACTUALLY INCLUDES proper laser safety panels!
No relying on everyone in the house walking around with laser shades all the time.
It didn't. That's an upgrade
That is an upgrade sadly
Just use an enclosure with a camera to monitor the cheapos which have no laser safety panels . It just works.
"when tf2 works, it's a coincidence"
I damn lost it good job!
You need mesh leveling for v-bits. It's actually quite easy to do but I don't know if it possible with this particular machine. Basically the bit and the board are both conductive. Connect a couple of wires and use them as an end stop. Whenever the tool touches the board it should send a signal to the Z end stop input on the CNC.
if you do it that way, your v bit is dull by the time you are ready to mill.
@@SharkyMoto you dont have to use the v bit to create the mesh
@@SharkyMoto How would lightly touching a copper surface dull the same bit that is going to violently mill through said copper? Can you explain the material science going on there?
@@ericcmcgraw the bit cant turn normally while your are leveling, so it isnt cutting but rather just pushing down on the bit.
@@leobla744 yes, neverthless the hardness of the materials are not affected by the speed, so the bit would still just dent the copper, not vice versa.
The projects are always banging, but your script writing honestly is the best in the business.
Time to invest in Micro Center.
I used to use a laser printer (from the library), clothes iron, and some homemade CuCl2( some mixture of HCl H2O2 and one pre 1982 penny) to etch my own boards, I erred on the side of over etching, bridged the missing connections with enameled wire, and it did work.
Yep I used to do exactly that back in high school, circa 1990. I got really good at it and made useful circuits borrowed out of magazines and with a bit of help from Radio shack for acid, PCB clad etc. I used a dc motor out of a toy car, coupled to a 1mm drill bit to hand drill the holes. Oh the good old fun days!!
10:15 OMG it just dawned on me... when I import PDFs and Jpegs into Autocad I often have to scale them by 2.54 to get it right... probably because the files are in dots per INCH and I want them in meters now...
I would watch a two hour cut of this, no hassle. Really interesting and cool!
I used to be a CAM/CAD operator at a custom printed circuit board manufacturer.
A) You don't remove the locator pins. You use shorter ones.
B) You program the G-code to drill the locator holes first, then pause. You set the pins. THEN you do all the rest, even on the first side. Relying on the tape alone can allow the board to shift as the bits push their way along, laterally.
C) I had to write custom GW-BASIC (yup, a LONG time ago) to check for things and automatically modify the generated G-code. Hand editing G-code is a losing game because there are to many opportunities for human error, and those errors almost ALWAYS cost money.
D) A vacuum bed will hold those boards flat AND release them without frustration as soon as you turn off the vacuum.
E) You are far, FAR better off laser printing your circuits onto transparency film (once you have calibrated the exact size of the print) than machining away copper. Most good laser printers have a setting to adjust the density of the print. Set that to the maximum so light doesn't leak through the black printed areas and cause there to be less resist left there than should be to get a clean etch. What black to the naked eye can still let a lot of light through.
hey machinist here, i have a few possibly helpful tips:
1. when using a flat endmill try not to plunge straight down but instead helix into the material.
2. you can find a lot of bits at machinist shops like herrics, MCSdirect, Grainger, Shars, Kennametal, ect.
3. some too materials and setups work better than others (HSS v.s Carbide, or 4 flute vs 2 flute) the harder the material the slower you can spin the spindle with larger feed same with more flutes.
4. Slower spindle speeds will make your tool wear down slower within reason.
2:35 That had to be one of the last references I would have expected in a video about making PCBs.
This is one of best vids you’ve ever done, that production value baby! Keep it up Zach, love it!
I appreciate the genuine level of perseverance after constant bit breakage! Sound effect game was on point for this ep too
love your portal stuff!
Great results for a first try!
I've made quite a few boards for hobby and professional purposes (mostly prototypes), I have a Sainsmart 3018-ProVer, which is very cheap compared to some of the dedicated PCB mills out there, but works very well for PCB milling. For control I use Candle, a very simple but capable little CNC software. I've gathered some experience over the years which I'd like to share:
- Clamp your board down firmly with at least four clamps. Tape works, but most PCB blanks are slightly bent, and if the tape doesn't hold it down perfectly, it may flex when you try to mill it, leading to inconsistent depth of cut.
- Install a leveling sensor. The simplest option would be two wires, one attached to the PCB, the other one to the milling bit. Alligator clips work fine. Most CNC boards have some sort of input for additional sensors.
- With the aforementioned sensor, level the PCB blank. One probe point every 10mm should be sufficient. Having a flat surface is not enough for the kind of tolerances we want, so software compensation is mandatory. All professional PCB mills do this. Candle works well for the software part, but most CNC software should have a similar feature.
- Precision end mills are nice, but quite expensive and fragile. I had good results with 30 to 60 degree V-tips. For holes, I use normal PCB drills. It's a bit more work to change the drill size for different holes, but milling holes takes way longer, especially if you have lots of them.
- Cheap bits are a bit of a gamble, sometimes they are good, sometimes they are garbage. But it's still cheaper to experiment a bit than to break too many high quality bits. One you find a type that works well, stock a few for future accidents.
- You want good quality bits, especially for isolation routing. Good bits cut with very little noise, and there should be no burrs around the cuts when you wipe over them with your fingers.
- Some sellers stock FR1 PCB blanks. Those don't have fiberglass in them, so they are way easier to mill and less dangerous, but they aren't as sturdy as FR4. For most applications they are absolutely fine though.
- Try to stick with sigle sided boards when possible. If you need two sides, you can connect the vias with copper wire, but most board designers will assume that all holes are plated through, and you can't solder both sides on all components (e.g. capacitors). This might lead to design flaws. Rivets are an option, but a lot of work.
- Don't bother with solder resist, it's messy, it takes forever and if you solder carefully, it's not needed for functionality.
- When the board is finished and tested, cover the copper side with protective lacquer. You can get that stuff in spray cans, there are special non-conductive types for PCBs. Keeps the moisture out and your boards look shiny and new even after years. Dries in a few hours. Also prevents shorts, but don't rely on that.
Happy milling, I hope you can speed up some projects in the future!
You deserve ten times the subscriptions. You are very entertaining while delivering a terrifyingly specific subject. :)
I've been wanting to make a custom keyboard, potentially a lot of them, with PCBs. And now I know that I DON'T want to do that so thanks!
My dad got a snapmaker A350 recently and it is so wonderful to finally be able to make pcbs at home, it has been a dream of mine for a really long time :D
It all started when i saw a 42 minute video on filament and i said "How could there be 42 minutes of filament?" now I've found my favorite page in youtube!
Forget the whole cnc circuit board cutting! I'm more impressed by how you named all the sponsors at the end with a straight face.
2:28 Haha that deflection when the bit goes into plastic
That was pretty cool stuff!
I make my pcb with a silhouette 4 vinyl cutter. Stick it on the board. Acid wash. Peel sticker off and dremel press drill the holes out. Way faster then 2 hours. But I have to manually drill
"Everything's better with a freaking laser"
Most adorable Dr. Evil impersonation. Ever.
if you coat the copper with something, laser away everywhere you dont need copper, you can also use the machine to etch pcbs... OH and before i forget, you can also use any old resin printer, just get yourself one of those uv reactive pcb blanks, make a 1 layer print in the shape of your pcb, etch it and you got yourself a perfect pcb with no tools in a very short time! also, no jagged edges and no microcenter.
Yeah but he got a free CNC machine.
@@1pcfred i know... i know, but with resin printers beeing CHEAP, using that would be epic, you can still use the cnc for actual cnc tasks like drilling the holes
Have you actually tried that? I would think that the laser could easily damage or even remove the hair thin copper right along with the mask. You'd still need a mill for holes/vias, and a I don't think a resin printer would have any means of aligning the image with the board. (Unless it's a single sided board with only SMD, or you're willing to drill everything by hand.)
On a laser/cnc combo like this machine you can use registration holes like he did to get the laser and mill in more or less perfect alignment, so the laser could probably help in other ways like maybe for marking silkscreen, or even cutting an SMD template.
Most 3d printers could be modded to take a laser head (ignoring software), so that technique sounds interesting. Ferric chloride is much cheaper than a pack of end-mils and arguably less messy than milling dust.
@@TheVideoGuardian maybe you need a mill for holes or vias but I have a dedicated high speed drill press. I don't drill boards on my CNC machine when I isolation route them. I drill them by hand with my drill press. I can't be asked to do all of the bit changes on my CNC it'd take. A 3 jaw chuck is a lot easier to work with. I'm very particular about part fit in boards too. One size does not fit all. Plus I just like drilling boards out. If I didn't then I wouldn't do what I do.
@@SharkyMoto I have a CNC machine but I don't drill boards with it. Changing bits with collet chucks kinda sucks. I also have a high speed mini drill press that drills PCBs out brilliantly too. It's why I have it.
This was just a sponsor for MicroCenter. Love the work, loved the video. Keep up the good work.
I fumbled my way through cnc'ing circuit boards a few years back, and had good luck with an aluminum spoil board, superglue (rather than carpet tape), and acetone. helped keep things flat. I had dedicated alignment pin holes that I'd design into the boards, and they had teenie-tiny ground points on them to which I'd set the CNC x-y zero using a usb microscope. Yes, these pins were made from my vast collection of broken endmills.
There is irony in the amount of snapped bits from the “snap maker”
“Sets the system to bald eagles…” I am dying. Funniest thing I have heard in a long time. Perfect delivery. Oh man, thank you for that laugh. I really needed it.
I just got that joke because of this comment. Thank you.
Hi Zack,
I'm also using Flatcam and a CNC for my professional(nah) PCB making endeavors. I've went through the same caveats and mistakes you've been through when I first started a couple of years ago, so here's some tips and tricks to improve your PCB quality.
-I don't have a bed leveller tool, so I offset my zero everytime I'm going to etch something. Trick here is to start the spindle and lowering the bit oh-so-delicately, with about 0.1mms every step. The moment you hear an etching sound, move it upwards by one step and start the program.
-Find the floating point precision of your CNC. My CNC works at a 0.00001 precision, so my isolation geometry code lowers at Z-0.00001 for accurate isolations.
-Sandpaper the hell out of your etched copper! Milling will only slightly move the copper and not going to magically make it disappear. If you sandpaper it, you will have a better end product and possibly avoid shorts.
-If you have approximately x3 more time, I suggest you create a ground plane and etch it also. This gives the PCB a non-copper area to avoid possible shorts but damn it it takes a lot of time.
-This PCB didn't have any tiny SMD components, but in time you will come to realize that isolation routing is not possible for routes less than about 0.7mms. I suggest that next time you should make a test routes to see what your machine is capable of, and use/create routes accordingly. I've lost too many boards wasted trying to use trace paths to a TMP117!
-My personal opinion when it comes to DIY PCB manufacturing is etching it with a laser cutter. I see that your device has a laser cutter, but 1.6 Watts is probably not going to do the job. Kindly check out this video to see the full process: /watch?v=RuSg7-hMaQg
Regards,
heh that's what I do too. Just BS the Z touch off. Running the path a few times does clean the job up. Don't use SMD garbage and that's that solved. If you don't have a pick and place machine then SMD really doesn't make any sense for you to use anyways. They invented SMT just to screw the DIY community. So why use something that's actively against you? 1.8W isn't a laser cutter. Well, maybe it could cut thin acetate or something? Tissue paper?
1) Make a 1-line Gcode file with the M21 command that you can run after E-Stop
2) Nice voice! Love the video, died laughing. Came back from the grave to write this comment. Remember me as I was.
3) Order bulk bits. You’ll use them. Trust me.
idk how you havnt hit a mil. Amazing personality and content keep it up pls!
Some of the most entertaining videos I've seen on RUclips
Such a puntastic video, great work as always
I used to show up just for the technical information, but I keep coming back for the never ending stream of comedy! Zack, you are a LEGEND!!
I'm too dumb to follow the project itself yet I'm still entertained by the comedy
What nice „sound of silence“ song at 10:25. awesome stuff, awesome video, funny & informational
I followed you trying the 0.2mm milling bit and found out that it just broke instantaneously. I tried with a bunch of bits I can find and the one that gave me the best result was the 10 degree V bit 0.1 or 0.2mm 1/8 shank. The bit was extremely cheap and the result was astonishing. My result was so good that I can compare it to the $3000 Wegstr machine. Hopefully somebody can read this and don't have to waste time and money on bits.
Oh, wow, thanks for including the instructions.
These puns are why I can't stop watching your videos
Zack when he sees a bit:
looks like you're going to the shadow relam, Jimbo
“Slather with photonics gravy” 😂 this dude is funny
this episode made me so proud of my local makerspace's piece of shit circuit mill. It can do at least on par isolation width with way cheaper tools. sometimes you gotta kick it to make it work but then it works really nicely and has done so for at least a decade at this point.
somehow I never realized you had ADHD, but now I have a couple questions!
1. Are you medicated? It can be really hard to tell with how varying the ADHD symptoms can be so forgive me for not being sure
2. If you are, or if you are not but you have tried them, did you notice a large improvement in your productivity etc? For me personally, it basically started a full-on life change for me. I went from 24/7 gaming and music production, no house chores, no nothing, to slowly finding that I really, really fucking like being productive, learning new hobbies etc and now I'm almost a year in and I wouldn't even recognize myself last year. Electronics, DIY, 3D printing, CNC, all of it has completely filled my eyes and head.
3. If you are NOT, how do you work around the issues caused by ADHD, like lack of productivity, focus, will to live, more productivity, mass murder, maintaining the life you want to etc?
Sorry if this is alot, I ramble in the mornings when my meds are just kicking in and its usually on youtube comments
You got a good and entertaining personality bro, I appreciate your content
This is a man who doesn't have a video game addiction
Your script writing is superb! This was a very informative video and I enjoyed it. Thank you for all the thought you put in to this channel.
This is a comedy channel right? You're killing me!, I'm cramping up from all the amazing jokes!
Use the Flatcam Beta, it is much better. To enable mesh bed leveling for cnc on the machine you would have to hack it a bit. There must be a z-probe pin that you can use? If that works you can do mesh bed leveling with bCNC.
If only the discord could have notified me of this video! I spent 3 hours depressed, lonely and board until Now where I’m just lonely
Hi Zack you are awesome and an inspiration. Use finger diel gouge to double check the board before you cut. Chances are it will not be flat. Instead of carpet tape use screws and shims to clamp the blank. I was a cnc machinist for a very long time and that's how it works with that. Hope I helped. When you cut a dial gauges are your best friends.
That jab at TF2 hit me like a TF2.
Also, Micro Center! Hey! I work there!
I hope this video takes off because it’s way cooler than mere 3D printing!
Wasting bits is the hallmark of this way of PCB making.
"Jackdaws Love My Big Sphinx Of Quartz" is amazing! I'm stealing that as my keyboard test phrase. I love your videos!
Hopefully this reaches you 2 years ago so as to save you a bunch of headaches.
1. Set Height Map
2. Use a 30deg Spiral Engraving bit(please, just the tip)
3. You need to blow on it once the tip is in. Seriously, you need an air assist to clear the cuttings away from the bit path.
Great videos, by the way.
The very first frame of this video is brilliant. I'm over 40 and now thinking about getting my very first tattoo and I'm only 5 minutes in.
The first steps to being okay at something is to suck at something. You are well on your way to greatness!
Fun trick, mount the board vertical and use a slitter blade. True you have to rotate the board around like a circus stunt but you get more feet per minute on the slitter blade. You can also bounce it back and forth between 2 opposing boards and send things flying. It tends to limit angles of traces until you get fed up and get a laser cutter to set the whole building on fire.
I bought a snapmaker 2.0 A350 during pre-order. I'm sad I've been so busy 3d printing for 2 years I haven't had much time.to even experiment with CNC or laser (I've also procrastinated building my own enclosure for lazer and CNC work so I don't cloud up my basement or blind my kids lol
I absolutely love the thing and it's cool to see big guys using them for stuff like this
Vacuum spoil board for your circuit boards. Then do like a .02 inlay into the the spoil board with fillets at the corners and lay the circuit board into the inlay not vacuum locked to the spoil board and aligned perfectly into the inlay
Dude's really got it out for TF2 today.
Take my subscription, you earned it.
Bud, I've been subbed to your channel for a while now and EVERY time you put a new video out it's even better. This shit is getting insane.
Seriously, why wouldn't you buy a few extra bits when you go? They are consumables, you will use extras eventually.
Came for the PCBs, stayed for the Ode du Microcenter
Great Video.The behavior cnc control "remembering last feedrate indefinitely" like Many G codes is referred to as Modal . CNC Control interprets the meaning XYZ IJK etc based on Mode. G20 inch mode G21 metric etc.
G90 and G91 for example are Absolute or Incremental Mode , G00 and G01 are rapid move or feedrate (F) move . G02 and G03 are cw or ccw arc mode. Some controls treat different commands as modal.
The singing is magnificent. I was pleased to see the turn of fate at the end! Great work
'Like a the dumpster behind a Whole Foods' hahahaha, that got me man! 😂😂😂 Great vid, thanks!
Use the CNC to drill holes, route the board dimensions/outlines, etc.
Use the UV resin printer to expose photo resist on the PCB, develop and etch as usual.
(Locate the PCB on the resin printer with the locator holes BEFORE removing the resist protective layer - and put 'end-stops' in place so the PCB won't slide around when exposing the resist)
This captured the pain of working with new tools
I can’t wait till you hit 1 mil subscribers, your vids are amazing keep ups the good work!
So glad i found your vid. I've been wondering for years what wheezy meant when he said "the combination is the G-Code."
Yay learning.
I spent the extra money to acquire a professional Belgian Colinbus milling machine (PCBBOX) an software, 10 years ago.
It has NEVER failed to produce a micrometre-perfect board EVERY time!
It uses alignment pegs that are only raised above the board a half a millimetre, to avoid fouling.
A thick spring-held pressure-platen on the the drill-head that flattens even warped boards as they are being milled.
And a vacuum nozzle in the centre of this platen.
Colinbus has sorted ALL of the problems that you encountered, and more, decades ago!
Don't re-invent the wheel.
CNC machinist here, You're killing me! I've made every one of these mistakes myself and at least once it has got me fired! I haven't laughed this hard in ages.
I subbed at "1600mW of coherent photonic gravy".
"microcenter my old friend" is gold. And I usually despise your jokes.
Damn, that TF2 comparison just made me sad :(
Loved this episode to "bits!" I've used a diamond tipped tool on an ancient engraver, with a spring loaded collet in the 'z' axis and spindle turned off. Did great work dragging sharp lines on anodized aluminum, maybe a robust tool like that could take on .0014" of copper?
It’s usually safest to run what’s known as a safety line, a block of code at the beginning of every program that sets modal commands that are most often guilty for breaking things. In my shop in the US, we use G20 G40 G80 G90 in most of our programs to set to inches, disable radial cutter compensation, disable cutting cycles, and set movement to absolute.
That's what I do in the G-code for my little desktop mill - I have a block I paste at the start of each file:
(Preliminary setup)
G90 G21 (Absolute movement, millimeters)
G92.1 (Reset all offsets)
M5 (Keep spindle off)
G94 F180.0000 (180 mm/min feed rate)
G92 X0.0000 Y0.000 Z0.0000 (Set current coordinates to physically touching the bottom-left corner)
G0 Z5.0000 (Move straight up off workpiece)
M3 S25000 (Turn on spindle, set spindle to 25K RPM)
M0 (Pause for spindle spin-up - NOTE: operator should actuate cycle-start to continue once spindle is at speed)
Of course I override/change from there but that start block stops a lot of potential problems, and I touch off the bit to set Z prior to firing up the file. My spindle is a 750w 24V DC PM motor on a 25A PWM speed controller that's controlled via USB and connected to Mach3 so it can respond to M3/M5, so I have it set to pause for spin-up, which also gives me a moment to make sure everything looks okay before pushing a bit into material.
After 2 trips to Microcenter, you'd think "Hey maybe I should just grab a few extras."
Well, I think I found my new favorite channel.
you got my thumbs up with that little song in the middle.
your finger isn't on the meta pulse; you _are_ the meta pulse!
you don't break the 4th wall; you _are_ the 4th wall.
sorry, I'm high lol
2:28 thanks for the visuals, i almost get caught by the marketing
Randomly popped up, loooooooove it! Gets me excited again to get into making. :)
I like the video. I wish I could afford to have just one 3d printer. But as a disabled Air Force Veteran who's only income is under $300 per month it's not possible to buy one. I hope to get one some day.
I love team fortress 2, would love to see you make a mini desk sentry or a sapper
Zack: Almost doesnt make a 3D printer video
The 3D junkies that we are: *REEEEEE*
Love that enclosure! 💘
Your videos are pure gold
IMO, for prototyping pcbs there is an even better way than milling, and that is using fiber laser engraver, look it up on youtube, it's really gnarly. I have tested this out and so far it's been a blast. No broken endmills, no toolchanges, no alignment problems ( ok, maybe some problems ). The laser i used was 50W but i've seen people online have good results with as low as 20W fiber laser engravers
After experiencing all of this myself. I can say very strongly CNC milling is a PAIN IN THE ASS!!!
"Don't judge me!" Sorry, I already did. I saw the solution as I was watching you put the pins in. It never occurred to me that someone would actually leave them there.
Your videos are awesome! Thank you for putting so much work into them