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Week 8 - Electronics production ​

Assignments of the Week ​

Group Assignment ​

  • characterize the design rules for your in-house PCB production process - submit a PCB design to a board house

Individual Assignment ​

  • make and test a microcontroller development board that you designed
  • extra credit: make it with another process

This week I will use a small desktop CNC machine Roland EGX-300 to machine the circuit board designed last week through computer control.

1. PCB Design Optimization ​

Due to the high requirements for trace width when using CNC machining for circuit boards, PCB design needs to be adjusted

  1. Adjust routing rules
  2. Set trace width
  • To meet machining requirements, adjust the trace width to 32mil
  • After completing the PCB routing design, considering that CNC can only process single-sided circuit boards, some traces cannot be connected on the same layer. For this, I plan to use jumper wires as a solution, that is, adding jumper wires on the back of the board after machining to complete the unconnected circuit parts.
  • Generate 3D PCB model
  1. Export as .stl file

2. Software Configuration ​

1. Software Installation ​

  1. Visit Roland website
  • Search for ModelaPlayer4 in the top right search bar
  • Select and download the corresponding software

2. Parameter Settings ​

2.1 Basic Settings ​

  1. Open ModelaPlayer4 and import .stl file
  2. Create new tool and configure tool parameters
  • Set tool diameter to 0.6mm
  1. Select machining material and tool configuration in Cutting Parameters

  • Select Brass as machining material

  • Select the newly created tool

  • Next, begin Set Parameters

  • Select Register

2.2 Machining Process Settings ​

  1. Select and configure machining process

  2. Select process type (Finishing)

  3. Set cutting surface

  4. Confirm machining tool

  5. Set cutting area and depth

  6. Configure tool path

  • Select contour line for tool path type and enable pitch optimization
  1. Confirm cutting parameters
  2. Generate tool path
  • Tool path generated after loading
  1. Preview
  • Virtual Modela is Roland's official CNC simulation software, used for simulating and visualizing tool paths before machining. After generating the tool path, click preview to preview the machining effect in Virtual Modela.

Machining ​

  1. Manual Tool Setting
  • Align the tool with the corner of the copper-clad board and adjust the coordinate zero point.
  1. Start Machining Next, I started machining but encountered some issues. This is my CNC machine model, but I couldn't find the corresponding model in ModelaPlayer4. Additionally, my computer might be missing the necessary drivers, causing it to fail to connect to the CNC machine. I tried searching for EGX-300 related content on the Roland website but couldn't find the corresponding driver.