Bah it almost worked. I’m still going to use this board, even though I screwed it up. In all the excitement I failed to get the engraving bit running true in my router. I won’t make that mistake again. The bit being somewhat askew in the collet adapter, it plowed out too much material by describing a circle, while it was spinning. But this is the very first board I ever tried to isolation route on my machine. So for me even these poor results are promising. As I know what went wrong, and I can take steps in the future to fix it.
I can see me getting this to work right eventually. It still isn’t chemical etching though.
This is an issue I’ve heard from a LOT of people. Sometimes it turns out the entire machine is vibrating, and the circle gets bigger or smaller depending on the frequency and resonance. Other times it’s just the shaft of the spindle; bearings or motor mount. Other times it’s the bit itself, or the mounting of the bit in the spindle. I’ve never seen a really good breakdown of how to troubleshoot or correct these issues… would be worth someone writing. Or a collaboration.
@Mano_Biletsky_Open_M
That may be a while. As I am not planning on making another circuit board right now. I am just using this one, and soldering wires to it.
The crux of my problem stems from the fact that until recently I was not aware that I have a 6mm collet, and not a quarter inch one. The difference is difficult to discern by eye. Plus I did not even know about metric router collets until I started investigating what is going on here. But what is in this router is clearly 6mm and not a proper 1/4 of an inch.
So the fix for me will be buying a decent imperial collet. Then my accessories should fit better. But I bought the router I am using as a spindle on my machine used, so I knew little about it when I picked it up.
Paul: Pros do use it for prototypes. WAY faster turn-around for one-off prototypes. Can be done on a bench-top. Of course it is not at all appropriate for production - far too slow. And for the hobbiest (like in this forum) it gets the job done quickly and without insanely expensive etching equipment or caustic chemicals. The final benefit to this approach is the holes are drilled dead-nuts-on for you. After you etch your own board, you have to manually drill each via and through-hole. Not fun, not fast, not accurate.
Regardless the work you doing Paul, I find it pretty strange that you can an imperial cutter into a metric collet. 0.35mm more would need a lot of unnecessary force to push it in. No wonder that your cutter will cut wide.
@HobbyCNC
It is fun, fast, and accurate for me. I have a mini high speed drill press for drilling out PCBs. I don’t do double sided boards either. I can manage with just one side for the circuits I make. So no vias. It can’t be much fun trying to solder the top side of board that doesn’t have plated through holes anyways.
One upon a time I bench soldered at a board assembly house so I do have my standards. I was a pro.
@Sandro_Kuehne
Well I did file the collet adapter down some. Now you know the rest of the story. Well, not really, but another part of it at any rate. I didn’t for instance tell you how I filed it down. It may have involved putting the collet adapter on a mandrel and spinning it though. Mostly because I’m not nearly as stupid as some would like to make me out to be.
for a prototype use wire wrap or point to point or use a pronto board and skip all the milling and drilling ,its ok at work but for a hobby no way ,if you want to etch at home ,check you home insurance policy make sure your covered chemical spills even small ones are dangerous and the fumes are nasty, a chemical hood is necessary,as a retired electrical engineer thats the last crap I want in my home
@Walter_Hynson
Thank you for your concern. But I’ve already etched boards. I do not use quantities of chemicals that would result in hazardous spills, or do that kind of work in my living space either. I have a workshop for that sort of thing. Out in the garage. This board is not a prototype either. I did that on a solderless breadboard. I am using this one in my CNC machine. So that makes it a production piece of equipment.
