[Coco] Homebrew CNC

[Gene Heskett]

On Monday 07 August 2006 16:18, Mark Marlette wrote:
>Better have LOTS of bits and cutters if you are working with FR4.
>
>It eats them for lunch.
>
>Mark
>
So I've been advised Mark, and one should include the cost of the dull 
mills and drills in the quote for the job.

>Quoting Roger Merchberger <zmerch-coco at 30below.com>:
>> Rumor has it that Joel Ewy may have mentioned these words:
>>>  The bulk of the machine is made of plywood.
>>
>> Works for me. I have a smallish slab of 3/4" hardwood plywood that
>> might make a good base... ;-)
>>
>>>  The tool I'm using is a Dremel.
>>
>> I have one of those - with the requisite carbide cutters & lots of
>> fine drill bits.
>>
>>>   I bought the 3-axis stepper controller board from Dan Mauch
>>> as a kit and soldered it up.  It hooks up to a PC parallel port.  I'm
>>> currently using DANCAM (different Dan) for DOS to run the motors, but
>>> I'd like to switch it over to EMC.  To do that I'll have to redefine
>>> the way EMC uses the parallel port.
>>
>> I'll have to check those out.
>>
>>> The machine may be able to route PC boards.
>>
>> ...
>>
>>> That would probably play havoc with any attempt
>>> to remove a thin layer of copper from a PCB.
>>
>> I wasn't looking to remove a thin layer - I was looking at cutting
>> out some/most of the board completely.
>>
>> I have very good "fine motor control" (finger dexterity) for things
>> like typing & soldering, but asking me to actually *cut* something at
>> 30K RPM is just asking for trouble... ;-)
>>
>> The (poor ascii) representation of the end of a CoCo cart:
>>
>>          ________________________
>>  ___    /  ||||||||||||||||||||  \    ___
>> /   \   |  ||||||||||||||||||||  |   /   \
>>
>> |   \___/                        \___/   |
>>
>> It's that stuff that I would find very difficult to "reproduce" by
>> hand; if a CNC could do it (speed isn't an issue here - only if it's
>> strong enough to fully go thru the PC board with a small
>> routing/cutting bit) to cut out the "ground wings" mechanically would
>> be a massive plus.
>>
>>> Dan Mauch has a web site at:  http://www.camtronics-cnc.com/
>>
>> I'll go have a look.
>>
>> Thanks for the info!
>> Roger "Merch" Merchberger
>>
>> --
>> Roger "Merch" Merchberger  --  SysAdmin, Iceberg Computers
>>  _±±_                          zmerch at 30below.com
>> (©||®)  If at first you don't succeed, nuclear warhead
>>  _)(_   disarmament should *not* be your first career choice.
>>
>>
>> --
>> Coco mailing list
>> Coco at maltedmedia.com
>> http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco

-- 
Cheers, Gene
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Copyright 2006 by Maurice Eugene Heskett, all rights reserved.