FILE GENERATING
Our milling machine in FABLab Beijing is Roland MDX-40, which receives .rml files. At first, I redesigned the trace file and put my name on it. Then I tried to generate .rml file on Mods as shown in the video below. Here are some notes on Mods:
- Remember to choose mill traces / mill outline
- Check the cut depth and make sure the settings fit your drill
- Add a save file module and re-calculate, the file will be automatically downloaded
But after first try on our milling machine, we found that the output was much smaller than expected. We thought that may be caused by the differences between MDX-20 and MDX-40. While Mods only supports Roland MDX-20 milling machine for PCB, we regenerate the files on Fab Modules, where has MDX-40 supported.
MILLING & SOLDERING
We then re-tried on our milling machine with the new files and succeeded. We used 1/64 drill and operation details can be explicited as following steps:
- Fix the board onto the machine platform with double-sided tape
- Select and install the drill
- Open the milling machine and connect it to a computer with its software
- Set xy origin using the software
- Set z origin with the help of the sensor
- Add files to the software and start cutting (trace file first)
Next, I started to solder all the components onto the board, where the inside-out rule Bas mentioned on the lecture helped a lot.
TESTING
TBD