What is the right mill for milling PCB?

[yang_cnc]

Hello:

I am interested in buying a mini mill from harbor freight, which is a pretty cheap mill. There is a lot of posts on this website about.

I read this PCB milling forum, I do not see any post talking about the harbor freight mini mill, actually people on this forum talk about some milling machine which I am not familiar with.

I want my mil can do CNC PCB milling, is HF mini mill OK to do that? Also, what is the popular approach on this forum to obtain a PCB milling machine, DIY or buy? If buy, what brands to choose?

thank you for your help.

[pminmo]

How fine of traces do you want to accomplish?

[yang_cnc]

I plan to work with only limited SMD devices, I think trace width of 10mil (0.3mm) or so will be enough.

[pminmo]

I don't believe you can get 10 mils out ofthe box with a mini mill, too much slop in the mechanics.

[yang_cnc]

ahhh! that is good to know.

What is your recommendation for things like 10mil or 20mil? and what is the popular choice on this forum(I read almost all posts, but I do not reach a definite conclusion )

I am completely new to CNC milling, any help is very appreciated!

[pminmo]

I really don't know what to recommend that isn't real expensive. Possibly a Sherline mill as I believe they are a little more precise, but the spindle isn't well suited for pcb's.

[yang_cnc]

what kind of spindle good for pcb?

On drewtronics, I see some pcb milling machine kit which looks nice. But that kind of milling machine may not be good for general milling of metal parts

[pminmo]

Milling metal and milling pcbs are two different requirements if you want to do 10 mil traces consistently. 16 to 20 mil reliably gets more realistic.

[yang_cnc]

so seems 10mil is an unrealistic thing to pursue.

As a hobbist, i have no difficulty to give up on that and use large device and wide trace, I do not expect to work on high frequency circuit, so this should not be a big deal.

ok, the question is: what is a choice(if DIY or economical kits) of mill to do 20mil wide trace?

Again, I am sorry that I gave 10mil at first, I just start to probe this field and thank you for the patience and time to answer my questions, I really appreciate it

[Jay C]

How big of a work area do you need?
What is the biggest circuit board you need to accommodate?
How much money do you want to spend?
How will you control it?
How big can the machine be given any room of space constraints?

Jay

[yang_cnc]

well, at most 6x10 inch board

budget is limited, under 1500, including machine itself, motors, software, is this realistic?

plan to use a retired desktop to control it

I can build a bench(about 30" x 60" top) for the machine, should have no space conatraint.

[pminmo]

You might look at CNCing the Sherline mill or the Micro-Mark mills knowing that you will have slow feed rates on milling pcb's. Or you could modify to add a Paul Jones or Wolfgang spindle