CAM for Milling

Hello everyone,

This might not be the best spot to post this, but I'm looking for a CAM (Computer Aided Manufacturing software) to use Reprap electronics to do some little milling work. Mostly, because I'm trying to "print" some double sided PCBs and that the reprap's software is kind of missing some of the features the cnc CAM have, I think I just missing a good step-by-step tutorial on how to mill pcb with a 3d printer (make the holes, make the traces, outlines, silkscreens, etc.). Would be great to know how to make some double sided ones, like how to align both sides and mirror for the "backside"/solder side. I guess ppl are still making money out of this knowledge and I'd need to go to school to learn it, but I don't think they teach you how to use reprap electronics to do some pcb milling...

Thanks in advance,
MikE

ps: ive posted in [forums.reprap.org] also because its knida closely related but any info on how to use cnc CAM with reprap electronics is what I'm looking for.

Welcome to reprap, this is open source, collaborative and etc, so nobody is holding back information on you. You just didnt searched for it.

[www.reprap.org]

I think courtesy of the same big contributor, mr Traumflug, who among other things also made some electronics that way - gen7. And if i may, i would further say that if you embark on this road, you will see that looking at pictures is always easier than getting the job done hands on. Making boards like that included, so keep in mind pictures dont catch the time lost, consumables used, the effort put in, and the dozens of tries that went before that picture - or other things like that. IMHO, if he or anybody like that is asking money for the process, then its for good reasons, not to get rich - at least this is my opinion. For even more information, search "milling" on the www.reprap.org. Cheers and good luck.

PCB milling isn't more complicated than any other milling or printing. gEDA/PCB has an G-code exporter which emits a number of G-code files (almost) ready to use. The header and footer needs a bit tweaking as Teacup doesn't support the S command, doesn't know what G17 is and similar minor things.

I'd suggest you simply start trying. A Gen7 Opto Endstop is a good design to start with. I use a conical engraving bit, my current favourite is 25 deg tip angle, 0.3 mm tip diameter. Isolation milling depth 0.2 mm, feedrate 200 to 300 mm/min. Less if your spindle doesn't make 10'000 RPM or above. Then just do it and see what happens.

If you want a tutorial, well, start writing one. The wiki is open for everybody. Being a newbie is the ideal time to do this.

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Generation 7 Electronics	Teacup Firmware	RepRap DIY

"Make my own tutorial", lol I knew that was coming

So, just to do some follow up on the subject, I found this part of the forum which might help me a little more: [forums.reprap.org]

Now, I thought I had a lot of options, seems like I have even more, more ciphering to do...

MikE

Thought I could share these links to:

[reprap.org]

[emc2arduino.wordpress.com]

[axis.unpy.net]

I have not read them yet, hope they are of some help, if not for me, for others on the same path I am...

MikE

edit: I wanted to add this also, seems like a good simulator:

[openscam.com]

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/20/2012 07:08PM by Mevon.

Hi all,

After a lot of looking around, I find some conclusion I need to share with everyone:

- pyCAM seems the best up-to-date tool, combined with Pronterface, would make for solid work.

- the emc arduino / emcreprap / emcrepstrap way seems to be partly successful, as it only provides extruder addon on usb for an actual cnc to do some 3d printing and the positioning is done the linuxCNC way, with the parallel port. Some work could be done to fully port all the gcodes to the HAL device but its intrinsically not compatible with linuxCNC. Also, the work is mainly outdated and people seems to have stop working on that avenue.

- gcam, visolate and the inkscape gcode plugin are also somewhat outdated, as in the latest updates date to 2010.

- people who have no idea what they are doing and plan to use reprap electronics on their diy cnc always plan to use CamBam? I need to look more into this CAM because it might be a good alternative for linuxCNC but maybe I'm not sure if it can replace pyCAM.

- grbl seems like a nice alternative to the Teacup firmware as a gcode interpreter, for some reason the latest release seems to be better suited but I still think Teacup is more complete and mature, but I need to investigate more on that. No switch homing for me is somewhat awkward and I don't know if the Atmega328 is compatible with the atmega644/gen7 board I have.

- I have hope for the emc2arduino firmware, but then again, as for the grbl, the hardware chages from reprap electronics to arduino 328, I must check if conversion is possible... Now, its mostly supporting Arduino Mega2560 (or UNO). I'll repost the link just because I think its a nice project: [emc2arduino.wordpress.com]

So for now, I will be concentrating on learning pyCAM, get my workflow right for double sided pcb milling and maybe try to contribute to emc2arduino, port it to the Gen7 hardware or get a compatible arduino. I'm also really tempted by using the 3 stepper drivers I have laying around and go cnc all the way with the parallel port and linuxCNC... don't know yet.

MikE

Mevon Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> - I have hope for the emc2arduino firmware, but
> then again, as for the grbl, the hardware chages
> from reprap electronics to arduino 328, I must
> check if conversion is possible... Now, its mostly
> supporting Arduino Mega2560 (or UNO). I'll repost
> the link just because I think its a nice project:
> [emc2arduino.wordpress.com]

I asked about the possibility of having out of the box configs for some of the common RepRap electronics (like RAMPS, Gen7), which would make getting a small CNC up and running using existing reprap electronics fairly easy.

Quote

"Make my own tutorial", lol I knew that was coming

What do you think how the PCB Milling wiki page was written? As I wasn't born as a PCB milling genius I had to learn, too. And along this learning, I wrote this page.

Quote

visolate [...] also somewhat outdated, as in the latest updates date to 2010.

Visolate's latest release was April 24th, 2012: [github.com]

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Generation 7 Electronics	Teacup Firmware	RepRap DIY