On Tuesday, October 25, 2016 at 11:24:37 PM UTC-4, Jim Wilkins wrote:
"rangerssuck" wrote in message
...
On Tuesday, October 25, 2016 at 2:45:37 PM UTC-4, Jim Wilkins wrote:
"rangerssuck" wrote in message
...

So, the foot is spring loaded towards the board and the router to
foot distance is controlled by a solenoid? That seems pretty easy to
rig up. I'm not sure why you'd (at least I'd) need to vary the Z axis
at all. The range of widths in their bits seems to be only a couple of
mils. Seems like if you're (I'm) drawing outlines of copper, a cut's a
cut. If I need a wider cut, why not just take two or more passes? The
software for that would be pretty simple once the rest was done.

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I don't exactly remember how the head operated. IIRC a stop screw set
how far the vee shaped cutter extended below the foot when the head
was down, maybe pulled by the solenoid? It could also drill the holes
with a longer stroke.

I planned jobs such that the board fab time didn't delay the project
and didn't use the T-Tech any more than I had to. Since it only made 2
layer boards without plated vias it wasn't that much better for
prototyping than perfboard, and tended to require a lot of inspection
and hand deburring. I usually needed 4 or 6 layers with internal power
planes, or RF microstrip on Duroid.

--jsw

Their hottest looking machine has a tool changer to do drilling & other width milling, and auto-zeros in the z-axis. The also have (not inexpensive) hole-plating & multilayer stuff. I could do without the tool changer, and the auto-zero would be pretty straightforward. Many of my boards are far less demanding than the 6x6mil I said before. even 12x12 would be good enough to get a lot of work done. I don't do microwaves, I do mostly industrial controls and that stuff tends to be bigger. many of the parts I use are available on breakout boards (generally for robotics hobbyists) and sometimes as arduino-type shields. Given that, and the fact that I'm rarely constrained by small enclosures, I usually don't need the high precision. I'm starting to think that I really could do this with an x/y positioned dremel and a two-position z axis.