Anybody using pcb2gcode?

[Winston]

http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/pcb2gcode/index.php?title=Main_Page

I've made 2 sided PCBs on my CNC mill and am looking for
a way to speed up that process. What is your experience
along these lines, please? Thanks.

--Winston

 

[[email protected]]

http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/pcb2gcode/index.php?title=Main_Page

I've made 2 sided PCBs on my CNC mill and am looking for
a way to speed up that process. What is your experience
along these lines, please? Thanks.

Too much work. Outcome sucks.

 

[Winston]

You send your Gerbers to a PCB manufacturer. They also make plated
through-holes, silkscreen and soldermask.
You're welcome.

Let me rephrase my question.

If you've milled PCBs, what package did you use to generate
the necessary G-code from your Gerbers and Excellon files?
How did the process go, overall?

I've been delighted with the quality of my manufactured
PCBs and astonished at the great performance of my
milled PCBs, while being concerned about the cost and
lead time of the manufactured PCBs and the amount of
time it took me to generate the proper G-code from my
CAD files for my milled PCBs.

Thanks!

--Winston

 

[Winston]

Too much work. Outcome sucks.

OK. Thanks!

--Winston

 

[Winston]

[email protected] wrote:

(...)

Winston, I find it difficult to imagine a situation where one would be
delighted with the quality of a milled PCB.

Why is that? Done properly, they can be every bit as good as a
board made by a commercial house. Well, mine are, anyway.

What is your experience level?

Electronic Engineering Tech. for a number of Fortune 100 companies
over the years.

Have you ever looked at a real two-layer PCB with plated through
holes, soldermask, silkscreen and proper plated copper?

Sure! Right after receiving my designs from the PCB vendor.
They worked great and looked terrific as did my four-layer boards.

I mean, if you have to clean your milled PCB, maybe tin-plate or clean
it very well, and then have to solder part leads on both sides,&|
stuff vias with wires, I fail to see the economies here.

Cleaning is fast and easy. Electroless tin plate is fast and easy.
Soldering through - wires is fast and easy. My quest is to improve
the things that are not fast and easy, like converting my Gerber
and Excellon files to G-Code automatically instead of manually.
I used to have more money than time. I now have more time than
money.

What is the technology here? Vacuum tubes?

Surface mount I.C.s and passives. Some through-hole.
Current project is a little amplifier. My milled boards were
a protocol converter and a little 8 LED blinker, both designed
using PIC microcontrollers Many Years Ago.

What is the quantity of PCBs you want?

One at a time, until the circuit is debugged and working
properly. Then I can send it off to my favorite vendor
if other folks are interested in boards. If not, one
working example is plenty.

You simply can not hope to compete in time and quality against a
manufacturer.

The competition is in dollars spent, not quality.
Even with a nearly manual conversion process, I had a double-sided
board within a week. Automate the most lengthy task
and that time would shrink dramatically.

Something's not adding up here.

What would that be, a7yvm109gf5d1?


--Winston

 

[Winston]

Muzaffer Kal wrote:

(...)

I have not done this manually but if I had to do it, I take the
following program and change it generate what ever output I need:
http://gerbv.gpleda.org/index.html

Apparently, that is what the folks at 'pcb2gcode' did.
See the section titled 'Installing':
http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/pcb2gcode/index.php?title=Main_Page#Downloading

As an added bonus, you can release your results and help the next guy
too.

Cool!

--Winston

 

[hamilton]

You simply can not hope to compete in time and quality against a
manufacturer.

Something's not adding up here.

I have to agree.

I still have all my wirewarp tools in a box in the garage.

Yes I could still build boards with the cut-strip-n-wrap bit, but why
bother.
I don't even want to do that as a hobby.

Winston,
If you enjoy the results of your cnc pcbs, wonderful, enjoy away.

But, please don't justify _your_ hobby as a viable pcb manufacturing tool.
One off prototype, yes, full manufacturing, no.

I would love to see some of your pcbs tho, I have wanted to build a cnc
mill for pcbs for years, but now its just to old school for my real work.

hamilton

 

[Winston]

hamilton wrote:

(...)

Winston,
If you enjoy the results of your cnc pcbs, wonderful, enjoy away.

Thank you Hamilton.

But, please don't justify _your_ hobby as a viable pcb manufacturing tool.
One off prototype, yes, full manufacturing, no.

Er. See my earlier answer in which I replied:
"

What is the quantity of PCBs you want?

One at a time, until the circuit is debugged and working
properly. Then I can send it off to my favorite vendor
if other folks are interested in boards. If not, one
working example is plenty. "

I would love to see some of your pcbs tho, I have wanted to build a cnc
mill for pcbs for years, but now its just to old school for my real work.

Hey, if I was still designing jigs for a living, I'd still be
using PCB fab houses. Now, it's just a fun hobby.

I was looking around for some of my earlier photos of the boards
but can't find the link any more. The boards have been in storage
in a dusty garage for several years, so they don't have quite the
'sparkle' they did. You can get a good idea of the results
by checking these images:
<http://www.google.com/images?hl=en&...b&btnG=Search+Images&gbv=2&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=>

--Winston

 

[Winston]

What is your investment in the milling set-up? I have no need to go
to Gerber's... I just need to make an occasional one-off for customer
demo's.

I started with a Sherline mill running under Flashcut CNC.
Probably had $2K in it. Used Generic CADD and placed each
drill and cutter on it's own layer. DXFs got converted to
G-code in Flashcut software. A set of files for the 'component'
side of the board and one for the 'foil' side.

Made a platform with a peripheral clamping frame that indexed
the blanks and clamped their edges flat.


Always lusted after one of these, though:

http://www.lpkf.com/products/rapid-pcb-prototyping/circuit-board-plotter/index.htm

--Winston

 

[Winston]

We use the software that came with our LPKF milling machine. I will have
a look at pcb2gcode!

And there are advantages in milled boards: I can have a prototype board
in a couple of hours!

Say, that sounds nice! I'm interested in hearing more about
that machine.

Vias are a paint though!!

I didn't find them too troublesome.
My boards were quite simple though. I designed to minimize vias.

--Winston

 

[Winston]

(...)


We had a similar setup, not lpkf but about the same. It was way too
much trouble, so we got rid of it.

What was troublesome? Broken cutters? Maintenance?

You can email files to lots of people and have several plated-through,
solder masked, silkscreened boards in a couple of days with zero
hassle.

With shipping that's what, an hour turnaround?
I'm not in that tax bracket.

I have my boards inside of say two weeks, normally.
'Course that was during 'boom' times. Perhaps they can
turn boards faster now.

You can't beat it for 'easy' and two layer boards are
cheap. (Less than half the shipping price!)


--Winston

 

[Winston]

linnix wrote:

(...)

We can probably make use of some low density single sided prototype
boards (connecting high density SMD modules). If we help you porting
the software, can you help us making the boards? Will take a look at
gerber2gcode.

Sorry, I don't want to be in that business. Shipping is a killer!
Please check with your local fab shop or get an estimate from a
reliable supplier outside your area.

At the risk of starting a religious war, I'll mention that I've been
delighted with AP Circuits:
http://www.apcircuits.com/ap/calculator

--Winston

 

[Winston]

[email protected] wrote:

(...)

if you really want to make your own pcbs something like press-n-peel
is
probably faster too

Ohhhhh No you don't!

I ran screaming from iron-on boards and press'n'peel and photopositive
and Budda knows what other gimcrackery that was available over the years.

My milled PCBs were the first that actually came out properly and
worked. No weird chemicals, no pinholes, no smears, no cracked traces.

--Winston

 

[Winston]

linnix wrote:

(...)

We use several fabs, Lead time between 2 to 4 weeks. We do 2 to 3
batches of PCB per month.

The economy must be on the mend!
That was the kind of lead time I had back during the 'boom'.

Seriously, though. There is no way I could compete on price, quality
or turnaround time.

Thanks anyway.

--Winston

 

[Spehro Pefhany]

It depends on how fast we need them. We have paid S&H of $30 from
China (FedEx) and $1 from Colorodo (USPS 1st).

Yeah, there are some good deals coming this way.

A gal was asking me last week how to get some papers to her parents in
Beijing and Fedex wanted about $90 for an envelope. 8-( Went with
registered mail for around $20.

 

[Winston]

Spehro Pefhany wrote:

(...)

Yeah, there are some good deals coming this way.

A gal was asking me last week how to get some papers to her parents in
Beijing and Fedex wanted about $90 for an envelope. 8-( Went with
registered mail for around $20.

Lots of times it comes down to 'shipping cost'.
My favorite vendor needs $26.00 to send me two 1" x 2" pcbs.

That is like what, >$4160. a pound? Yikes!

--Winston

 

[Spehro Pefhany]

I don't know why some companies insists on FedEx or UPS.

I suspect it is a profit center- they get a huge discount off the list
price and charge you the list price. Otherwise they'd have to raise
their prices, and you might not think it's such a great deal. Maybe
they think it weeds out cheapskates who are likely to complain about
other things.

 

[Winston]

(...)


Well, *you* asked how to speed it up,

?

I thought I clarified by saying:
"Let me rephrase my question.

If you've milled PCBs, what package did you use to generate
the necessary G-code from your Gerbers and Excellon files?
How did the process go, overall? "

See, I already know how to speed up that particular process.
(Automating the process of converting PCB CAD files to be
compatible with CAM.)

That wasn't the question.

I'm familiar and comfortable with the other PCB manufacturing
processes. That wasn't the question either.

Let me see if I can help.

First part:
"If you've milled PCBs..."

OK. That narrows the range of answers to include information
regarding the process of mechanically milling PCBs as opposed to
say photolithography or other ways of doing this.

Next:

"..what package did you use..."
In other words, please name the software you employed to
partially or completely convert your Gerber and Exellon files
to G-code for CAM processing.

Next:

"How did the process go, overall?"

Here, I ask the relative level of satisfaction the user had
with the task of creating a mechanically milled PCB from
their normal design file output. Additionally, I imply
that I would like to hear about shortcomings of a particular
approach or tool. Alternatively, I would like to hear if
an approach or tool worked particularly well.

and we gave you the answers.

You've got me there. There *were* random noises
emitted after I stated my question. That does
meet the legal definition of the term 'answers'.

I was rather hoping for information about the process
of mechanically milling PCBs, though.

You didn't like them, now we know the real story.
You *like* futzing around with expensive, noisy machines!

Well, yeah, I do. They are paid for, and fun to run.

Will you now interpret my latest answer as a request to
know more about photolithography? Really? Again?



--Winston

 

[Winston]

That's all we need to know. You don't actually want to make PCBs
better or faster. You want to jusitfy your poor choices to yourself,
and maybe your wife.

?



--Winston

 

[Winston]

o pere o wrote:

(...)

There is nothing to say about the machine that is not already known:
Simply export gerbers for top, bottom, contour, lettering (if desired)
layers. Export also drill files.

These are imported into the CircuitCam program which computes the path
for the mill(s). You can have rubout zones where all unused copper is
removed, interesting for RF stuff.

The generated files are imported to the BoardMaster program which
directly controls the drill/mill. You place the project on an A4 board
with sufficient remaining area and the current project is drilled,
milled and cut from the board.

Next you scrub the board with scotch-brite and you can start soldering!
You certainly have to minimize the number of vias! In the past we used
simple wire soldered at both sides. Now we usually use small rivets
which we are also soldered. There is a system to metalize the holes
based on dispensing a kind of paste that is afterwards cured but even
the LPKF folks seem to discourage this!

I wonder if the vias can be plated using an 'electroforming' process?

With this approach we have build several two-layer boards with 0.5mm
pitch FPGAs and associated chips. For prototypes it is fast and good
enough. Chinese PCB manufacturers are however an increasingly attractive
alternative!

Very interesting! Thank you.

--Winston