Group Task
PCB Production Specifications
Setup
In our FabLab we have a LPKF Protomat S62 PCB milling machine. With the software
suitable software you can control the milling machine.
Please follow the advices to assure that the production of a PCB feasible:
1. Turn on the milling machine first, otherwise the software cannot connect to the machine.
2. Do not open the milling machine while it is milling your PCB!
3. If the machine stops working or looses connection without any obvious reason the easiest way handling this is: Closing down the software, turn off the machine, turn on the machine and open the software again.
Our local tutor Paulina gave us an introduction on how to operate the milling machine as there are several steps to prepare the board in the 'EAGLE' software, followed by steps in the 'CircuitCam' software
and then while milling with the 'Boardmaster' software.
All software needed to prepare your PCB after it has been processed in 'EAGLE' is installed on the
desktop right next to the machine. Using the machine is not as
difficult as we imagined but it does have to a certain degree its own life. Some days you cannot make the PCB mill work properly.
Specifications for Production with the Mill
- During the assignment 'Electronics Production' in which we produced our own FabISP we already encountered the problem of the usable width for the routes on our PCB.
Our local tutor made us aware of choosing a width that we can work with. E.g. for people that are new to the field
of soldering thicker lines are helpful as they are easier to solder. Furthermore, each mill has a point at which it cannot mill
the line properly anymore, i.e. the line is to thin to get milled properly.
-
To test the mill in our lab we designed a board with different width of the routes (from 3mil up to 50mil in the eagle software).
We milled this test board and the result looks like this:
As visible the width 3mil up to 6mil is to thin to be milled properly. From 8mil upwards our mill is able to produce lines that are connected.