Anyone using their Tormach for PCB milling?

[igd]

My office would like to be able to use Gerber files to create PCB prototypes. Does anyone have experience with this? Probably going to give CopperCAM a shot first.

[SCzEngrgGroup]

Have you looked at the price for real PCB prototypes these days? Unless the boards are very large, or very tight design rules (neither of which would mill well anyway), I wouldn't waste time milling protos. You can get a small quantity of boards for peanuts, and turnaround can be as little as a few days. Check out MyroPCB.com - that's the vendor I use for both protos and production. Quality is excellent, and prices are amazing. I get the one-week turn, and the boards are always at my doorstep within a week.

Regards,
Ray L.

[mountaindew]

My office would like to be able to use Gerber files to create PCB prototypes. Does anyone have experience with this? Probably going to give CopperCAM a shot first.

No Experience, but!
Electronic prototypes was the first thing I thought of when tormach introduced their new high speed spindle.

[jcposada]

No Experience, but!
Electronic prototypes was the first thing I thought of when tormach introduced their new high speed spindle.

I have done it. Obviously not for production, but it works great for a quick prototype with one or two layers. Design in the morning, test by noon. Midwest Circuit Technology is where I buy the micro end mills and drills. No relationship other than a satisfied customer.

Attachment 286126

[Tkamsker]

hi i do pcb milling a lot isnt that an overkill with the tormach i use a router and probe the pcb ,..


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[igd]

We have several suppliers for low volume PCB runs but wanted to see if we could bring the turnaround down to hours rather than days for early prototypes of simple boards. The Tormach is overkill obviously but it's what we have so might as well use it.

I have done it. Obviously not for production, but it works great for a quick prototype with one or two layers. Design in the morning, test by noon. Midwest Circuit Technology is where I buy the micro end mills and drills. No relationship other than a satisfied customer.

Attachment 286126

Thanks, exactly what we're hoping to do. May I ask what software you're using to generate the G-code?

[mcphill]

If you design in Eagle, there is a script called PCBGcode that will generate toolpaths from the Eagle files.

[jcposada]

May I ask what software you're using to generate the G-code?

If you design in Eagle, there is a script called PCBGcode that will generate toolpaths from the Eagle files.

There are a couple of them named very similarly. I use PCB-GCode Phorum

It is free and John Johnson, the person who developed it and maintains it is super responsive. I remember when I first started using it there was some weird behavior regarding tool numbers higher than some number. I brought it to his attention and he pushed a release addressing it overnight.

[pickled]

Have you looked at the price for real PCB prototypes these days? Unless the boards are very large, or very tight design rules (neither of which would mill well anyway), I wouldn't waste time milling protos. You can get a small quantity of boards for peanuts, and turnaround can be as little as a few days. Check out MyroPCB.com - that's the vendor I use for both protos and production. Quality is excellent, and prices are amazing. I get the one-week turn, and the boards are always at my doorstep within a week.

Regards,
Ray L.

Thanks for the source Ray. I bookmarked those guys just now because I have an integration project coming up that is going to require a few renditions of PCB's. The breadth of experiences on this board is absolutely amazing. Ask about it and someone most likely is, or has done something like it.

[igd]

Don't use Eagle so pcb-gcode is not an option. CopperCAM seems to work well most of the time but documentation is nonexistent and it can't cut outlines if they're not already drawn in the gerber file. Would be nice if there was a way to generate it automatically or manually draw it in. Also looked at FlatCAM. Better documented, clean interface, and more control over the process than coppercam but it has its own issues. You have to edit the G-Code manually to add spindle speeds and tool numbers, it takes more steps to generate the operation, and you have to specify tool diameter in three different places for some reason. You also have to calculate the width of cut manually if using an angled engraving tool. Will experiment more with both but leaning towards using CopperCAM.

[SomeWhatLost]

I did a couple times just to try... technically it worked... but ended up going back to sunstone...
anyway:
CopperCam - pretty neat, I really wanted to like it.... but... to many weird issues/annoyances...
CamBam - not sure if it was a plug in or some such, it was a while ago, but got it to read in gerbers and it worked pretty good, plus it has it built in 'basic CAD' type feature so I could do a fairly 'curvy' board out line with some curvy text... curvaceousness didn't really serve any purpose, just did it cause I could