Milling a One-Sided PCB in Etcheverry


Step 3: Milling your Rapid Prototype PCB

Make sure you have the necessary drill, routing and milling bits as well as a pair of tweezers (to help remove bits) for this step.


Setting up the macine:

  1. First, place the backing board and copper board on the machine so that the holes line up with the posts on the machine itself. These will hold the board in place and will provide alignment if milling a two-sided board.
  2. Now turn the machine on with the switch on the left side of the base.
  3. Things might creak or move around a bit.
  4. Feel free to insert the milling bit now. You can release the current bit by pulling the lever on the right down and to the right. Now slide the cover over and pull out a bit if it is in there. Set that one aside and insert your own. Slide the cover back and move the lever back to lock the bit in place.
  5. Start the software. This is BoardMaster 32 "Always a cut ahead.".

Import your print (LMD) file

  1. File/import/LMD. Select the file you'd like to import.
  2. Make sure that top layer is selected in the drop down box. You should be able to see a small picture of your board on a big grey background. The background represents the copper sheet, so you can move your board to the location you'd like.
  3. To do this, use the move project button (looks like copy) and drag the board to a location. You can see where this is physically by clicking the Move drill button (to the left of move project) and clicking the top left corner of the board. The drill should physically move to that location.
  4. Once you have moved the layout to the location you want, we can start drilling!

Spin up the motor

  1. Let's make sure the motor is spun up. This could take a couple minutes if you just turned the machine on. Click the Motor on/off button (it looks like undo or redo). A dialog box should appear that says it is turning the motor on. You will definitely hear it too.

Start Milling

  1. Now make sure that the top layer is selected in the drop down box and click the All+ button to select all.
  2. Click the Start/Stop button at the far right to start the milling. It may bring the drill out so that you can change drill bits so make sure that the milling bit is in there.
  3. Once the drill bit is in, it will return to the board location and start milling. You can zoom on the layout by clicking the spy-glass button and drawing a window around your layout with the mouse. You can see the progress of the milling by the marroon that it draws on the screen.

Drilling

  1. Next we want to drill the holes once the first phase has completed. Because the software naturally wants to drill after the bottom side has been etched, we need to reverse its priorities. Go to ?Settings/Layers and you should see that DrillPlated is selected for Reverse. Uncheck this box.
  2. Select DrillPlated in the drop-down box and your drill holes should appear. If you can't see them, zoom out on the grey area. You might have forgotten to select the top-side for drilling in the previous step.
  3. Once the drill steps appear, you can spin up the motor again if you turned it off and Select All with the All+ button. Now hit Start.
  4. It should prompt you to enter the proper drill bit. For small holes and vias, the cutting bit should suffice.
  5. The drill might come out a few times for a new drill bit and you can insert the proper ones as needed.
  6. This is what will create an image for the milling machine to mill. The files given so far can be considered a positive image and the milling machine needs to mill around them.

Cutting the board

  1. Last, we'd like to cut the board outline. Select cutting in the drop down box and select all again.
  2. Spin up the motor and let 'er rip (i.e. press Start). When it prompts you to enter a drill bit, make sure that the cutting bit is in there.
  3. It should cut all the way around the board except for the breakout tab. Now you want to move the drill to where the breakout tab is, make sure the motor is spinning and press the button to bring the drill down.
  4. This should punch out the board entirely.
  5. Turn off the motor, and move the drill out to the starting position with the drill place button so that you can remove the drill.
  6. Once you've removed the drill, exit the software and turn off the milling machine.
  7. Remove the copper and backing boards and examing the magnificent specimen you've just produced. Pretty cool, eh?
  8. You can wipe off the edges to even things out pretty easily.

Now you're done. No more steps. Good bye.



Sarah Bergbreiter
6/8/2001