PCB prototyping idea
 

On 26/05/2016 20:37, Jim Thompson wrote:
On Thu, 26 May 2016 14:16:30 -0500, Jon Elson
wrote:

N_Cook wrote:

I was in a craft shop today and one of these was being demonstrated
www.cricut.com
I got the demonstrator to try it out on 0.05mm thick copper foil. It
worked very well on parallel lines 0.3mm spacing and letters where the
vertical body of letters wer of qwerty were 2mm high and extra
curveyness of the "fun" script cut out and came through perfectly well.
She was so impressed she emailed a pic the engineering department of
that company.
Machine is roller feed of flat sheet. Requires firm , more than stick-it
note, bonding of the foil to a backing or the foil will tear. The cutter
was not new, a few months of about 22 hours a day use, often left
running overnight for multiple outputs, like 3D printer operation.
Hmmm, very interesting. Can you send me a picture of that test, too?

A guy I'm working with is doing wearable LED clothing. We made some
prototypes with Rogers flexible PCB material, that is super expensive. It
looks like this machine might be able to use some cheap laminated material,
like they use for metallic labels. You just need to get the stuff made up
with copper foil instead of aluminum. (Cricut seems to like stainless
foil.)

Where did you get the copper foil? Was this just bare copper foil, or was
the foil attached to some plastic backing? That's what I'd want, of course,
to make a flexible PCB. Or, does Cricut supply the backing as a standard
consumable?

Thanks for the info, looks VERY interesting.

One other area, can you feed it arbitrary drawings? How about Gerber files?
(Yeah, I know, I'm asking a lot!!)

Jon

Can you feed it a ordinary PCB blank?

I have a Stika "printer" which cuts stick-on tape that I've used
successfully to mask sand-blasting glass with fairly intricate
patterns.

I've been tempted to try that as an FeCl3 etch mask.

...Jim Thompson


She had examples of neatly cut leather about 3mm thick, so presumable
with correct offset for depth of cut , would work on this m/c

PCB prototyping idea
 

On 5/26/2016 4:31 PM, N_Cook wrote:
On 26/05/2016 20:37, Jim Thompson wrote:
On Thu, 26 May 2016 14:16:30 -0500, Jon Elson
wrote:

N_Cook wrote:

I was in a craft shop today and one of these was being demonstrated
www.cricut.com
I got the demonstrator to try it out on 0.05mm thick copper foil. It
worked very well on parallel lines 0.3mm spacing and letters where the
vertical body of letters wer of qwerty were 2mm high and extra
curveyness of the "fun" script cut out and came through perfectly well.
She was so impressed she emailed a pic the engineering department of
that company.
Machine is roller feed of flat sheet. Requires firm , more than
stick-it
note, bonding of the foil to a backing or the foil will tear. The
cutter
was not new, a few months of about 22 hours a day use, often left
running overnight for multiple outputs, like 3D printer operation.
Hmmm, very interesting. Can you send me a picture of that test, too?

A guy I'm working with is doing wearable LED clothing. We made some
prototypes with Rogers flexible PCB material, that is super
expensive. It
looks like this machine might be able to use some cheap laminated
material,
like they use for metallic labels. You just need to get the stuff
made up
with copper foil instead of aluminum. (Cricut seems to like stainless
foil.)

Where did you get the copper foil? Was this just bare copper foil,
or was
the foil attached to some plastic backing? That's what I'd want, of
course,
to make a flexible PCB. Or, does Cricut supply the backing as a
standard
consumable?

Thanks for the info, looks VERY interesting.

One other area, can you feed it arbitrary drawings? How about Gerber
files?
(Yeah, I know, I'm asking a lot!!)

Jon

Can you feed it a ordinary PCB blank?

I have a Stika "printer" which cuts stick-on tape that I've used
successfully to mask sand-blasting glass with fairly intricate
patterns.

I've been tempted to try that as an FeCl3 etch mask.

...Jim Thompson


She had examples of neatly cut leather about 3mm thick, so presumable
with correct offset for depth of cut , would work on this m/c

What is an m/c?

--

Rick C

PCB prototyping idea
 

On 2016-05-26 04:06 rickman wrote:
What is an m/c?

It's a robot Master of Ceremonies, otherwise known as a Machine.

Mike.