Maker Mikey Sklar has been experimenting with DIY printed circuit boards — however slightly than the same old toner switch and etch strategy, has put two different instruments to work: a CNC mill and a fiber laser, every making up for the place the opposite lacks.
“You can also make a number of customized circuit boards in underneath an hour utilizing a CNC [mill] and a fiber laser,” Sklar explains. “A CNC is good for making exact, deep cuts and drilling holes. We will use a 50-cent clean PCB and reduce out three small circuit boards in lower than 9 minutes. Whereas a fiber laser is able to these duties, it’s higher fitted to delicate operations like hint chopping and engraving.”
For the fortunate maker who has each a CNC mill and a fiber laser obtainable — in Sklar’s case the latter is an xTool F1 Extremely 20W fiber laser, whereas the previous is any mill massive sufficient to accommodate the clean PCB — it is attainable to quickly create customized PCBs through the use of the precise device for the job. Chopping the PCBs with the laser would take far too lengthy and generate extreme fumes; rigorously chopping neat traces can be an actual problem for the CNC mill.
Sklar’s strategy makes use of each for what they’re good at: the CNC mill is used to chop a bigger clean PCB into three smaller boards and drill the mounting holes; the boards are then handed throughout to the laser to etch the traces. “The preliminary hint reduce course of may be very quick,” Sklar notes, “taking solely 90 seconds to chop by way of the copper layer for all three boards. It reduces the comparatively lengthy engraving time, which was 34 minutes for all three boards.”
The completed PCB (second from top-left) is fully-functional, and the method even helps vias and double-sided designs. (📷: Mikey Sklar)
The laser can then even be used to chop a skinny layer of brass right into a stencil, prepared to use solder paste to the boards — held in a helpful 3D-printed jig, simply so as to add one other device to the combination. The boards are then prepared for part match and reflow to finalize their meeting into compact chording keyboards.
Extra data on the venture is out there, alongside settings for the laser and a Python device for mirroring a DXF file, on Sklar’s GitHub repository.