Pcb Manufacturing Companies China Pcb Manufacturer China

hey guys welcome to my basement today we

will build the printed circuit board or

pcb

which we have created plot files for in

the last episode

there's a lot of stuff to go through so

let's get started

[Music]

usually i use this router to mill stuff

made of wood

such as decoration for spring or winter

or halloween or even furniture

for example those night stands made of

massive beach wood

are made entirely on this machine

when i mill stuff i don't want that

lower plywood plate here to be damaged

so i put the 25 millimeter mdf plate on

top

which i'm actually sacrificing over time

that means i mill a bit deeper than i

have to

and i don't care if the mdf plate gets

damaged i smoothen it from time to time

by just removing a couple of millimeters

over the whole surface

but look at this pcb it's so tiny

moreover the copper coating is 35

micrometers thin in imperial terms

that's

why you figure that out it's not much so

we need to mill at a precision of let's

say a tenth of a millimeter

how are we going to do this on this big

uneven and used mdf plate

first we need to find the right way of

fixing the board

i've seen youtubers using screws to fix

the board and also some people glue it

to the surface

the problem with screwing it on is that

you curb

or bend the plate even further and you

would create additional differences in

height for the for the z-axis

meaning that if we would just bluntly

mill the isolations

without further measures we would have

multiple millimeters of variation on the

z-axis

you might say let's just mill a bit

deeper but there are two problems with

this

first the board itself is only two

millimeters thick

or 1.5 millimeters and we might hence

cut the board cut through the board

second have a look at the tool which we

will be using

we will use those tiny v-shaped

engraving bits here

they are great to just remove a little

bit of the surface

but if we go too deep in one run then

the tool path will become larger

and also the tool might just break

because copper is actually a quite hard

material

so as a first step we want to make sure

that we fix this board as plainly as

possible

without further bending the best and

cheapest way i have found

is actually using one of these

painted plywood plates they are rough on

one side

and smooth on the other you can see i

have holes here

everywhere over the whole surface

below under the lower plywood plate here

i have actually

squeezed in those eight millimeter nuts

meaning that i can fix

objects on top of it using eight

millimeter

metric screws everything can be done

with imperial measurement of course

forgive me for not converting everything

so i made this plywood plate

i made this plywood plate with

corresponding holes and i can now fix it

on the mdf plate

and guys i'm using this big machine here

but everything i show here

can be done on small mills as well i

have actually started with the chinese

30 times

40 centimeters machine and did all

this just the same so now we have the

nice smooth

surface in order to fix the board i'm

using this double adhesive tape

which we use here in germany to fix

carpets on the floor so you can

hopefully find these in the diy shop

i have prepared this here basically it's

just a strip of the adhesive

tape which you put on the board and you

and you put the pcb on the other side it

takes a bit of patience to not fold it

when you're putting it on the plywood

board

but it's totally feasible the advantage

of this is that the whole thing is

nearly perfectly even and once the board

is ready

i can still remove it the tape is

however strong enough

to prevent it from moving during the

milling process

great so now we have the board fixed in

order to adjust for the variation of the

z-axis because of the uneven pcb

there are various methods you could use

such

spring or coil loaded tool here

for engraving this would actually adjust

itself

within a certain range and basically

mill at a constant pressure

these tools are difficult to find and

also quite expensive

so i'm not really using them a second

way

would be to spring load the whole

spindle

and to use a distance holder this way

the spindle

would always keep the same distance to

the work piece

but these holders are also quite

expensive difficult to find

and also we would need to remove it for

drilling third possibility which i had

thought of but never actually test it

would be to spring load the whole plate

here

so in fact put springs around

the screws so that the whole platform

would have a certain elasticity

i might test this in the future but for

this video i will use the method which i

know works

and which i have used before that is

probing the surface with an electric

contact

before we move over to the pc and select

the right tools in the cam software

and create the tool path for milling

please let me quickly explain a couple

of things around the cnc router here

and also why i chose the cam software

that i'm using

i'm using this one kilowatt spindle from

cress which in fact

had a little hand wheel where you could

adjust the revolutions of the spindle

but this means that i had to adjust the

speed of the spindle by hand

each time i needed to change parameters

not a big deal as such

but if you are in the process of milling

and you realize

that you need a bit more juice on the

spindle or that you're going too fast

you actually have to touch the spindle

while it's moving

not great from a security perspective

so i replaced the potentiometer with

this little circuitry over here

it contains an optocoupler and it's

actually

a variable resistor that converts a pwm

signal into a variable resistance

and now i can pre-select and change the

revolutions per minute

using the cnc controller software even

on the fly

the second particularity that makes

milling much easier especially when we

have uneven surfaces

is the fact that i can attach an

electric probe to my controller

the spindle is grounded and i have that

probe here

which i can either use to adjust the x y

and z axis by approaching it from the

outside and as soon as the tool touches

the plate

it will stop and automatically zero the

axis in our case for the pcbs

we will use this sensor to probe the

surface that means before we actually

engrave the isolations into the board

we will tell the cnc controller up about

the let's say

landscape on the board meaning the

little valleys and hills we have on this

board

they are small very small but they exist

during milling the cnc controller will

then adjust the z-axis automatically

and hence we will always be at the same

defined depth

so this allows us to gain the precision

we need

i'll show probing in a minute if we

wouldn't do this then our results would

probably look like my first experiments

here

and you can see there are areas where i

removed

too much copper and there are also areas

where no copper has been removed at all

actually i even used this feature when i

made the nightstands

the raw material for these was a huge

kitchen plate

and when i bought it i realized that the

plate was curved

it was roughly an inch higher in the

middle than it was on the outside

so what i did i used aluminium foil

and covered the whole plate glued it on

with a glue spray that can easily be

removed afterwards

and probe the whole surface but let's

get back to our pcbs

and actually move over to the cam

software now i just quickly need to take

note of the maximum depth for the board

let me quickly do that using the caliper

we have 1.5 millimeters here

the cam software we are using is called

estel cam

i choose this software because it has a

couple of attributes that make cnc

milling for a hobbyist like me much

easier and hey

it's made in germany just kidding first

it's not expensive if we check out

christian gnul's website we can see that

the full license costs 49

euros that's what like 50 to 60 dollars

at most

furthermore cnc routers usually come

with a parallel port

like printers used to have that

beautiful 25 pin connector here

but modern pcs don't have these anymore

so many cnc hobbyists have that old pc

operating their machine just because

they need the parallel part

estelcam can use a usb interface using

either a diy

interface with an arduino or like i did

here with an arduino nano

i have been using this for years and it

worked very very well

recently i bought the interface from

christian for 30 bucks

because it has additional sensor outputs

which i needed

to mod my spindle for automatic speed

selection

two more features that i really like hey

and then i'll stop making publicity for

you christian

you will need to put me on your

christmas card list for this

so two more features are the fact

that the cam software does have the cnc

controller software integrated

that means that rather than using an old

pc here in my basement

i can design the toolpaths on a little

laptop

and also control my cnc router with it

last but not least i can use a game

controller like this one

to actually move and adjust the spindle

i'm using this wireless model which is

great

because there are no cables in my way

when i move around

but really enough publicity now let's

create the tool path

let me open the hpgl file which we have

created in the first episode

i can either create all the toolpaths

manually

or alternatively tell estelcam to create

these automatically for me

in my case i will first select the tool

for drilling and let estel cam create

all the drill holes

for this we will use an 0.8 millimeter

drill

that's great for the smaller pads on the

board we will increase the size of some

of these holes later

for the larger elements such as these

relays which have larger pins

here we go

we have the drill holes now let's group

them together this comes in handy when

we want to choose the order for milling

because we will need to change the tool

a couple of times we want to mill each

block that uses the same tool in a row

okay now let's select the right tool for

carving the isolations

i have it predefined here and can let

estelcam create the carvings

automatically

or do it by hand or first let it do it

automatically and then correct by hand

when we do the carvings let's not forget

that there are a couple of pins that

need to go to ground you remember

i do not have conducting lines for

ground that means that i should remove

the carvings from the pins

that need to go to ground let me just

quickly arrange all this

great last but not least let's look

after the larger holes and how to cut

out the board

for this we will use a 1.2 millimeter

end mill

just select the holes for the relays and

do the contour for the board

here we go perfect let's double check on

everything

we need to make sure that we do

everything in the right order

and that all the tools go at the right

depth

let's not forget the holding tabs for

the outer contour

this will avoid that the piece starts

moving around

in the last seconds of the milling

process even though

we would not necessarily need them as

the board is glued over the whole

surface

but better be safe than sorry

perfect let's go and machine the thing

[Music]

before we can start the milling process

we need to zero the x

y and z axis x and y are quite easy i

just move

the machine to any starting point where

i think

the zero point in my cam software should

be let me just do that quickly

here we go we can zero x and y

zeroing the z axis can be done in

various ways there are quite expensive

tools available

and mid-range price probes that actually

test the tool length

but by far the best and cheapest method

that i have found is this high frequency pcb manufacturing (https://szeastwin.evlla.com/)-tech

device made in germany here

piece of paper i put the paper on the

board and slowly lower the spindle

until you can barely move the paper

here we go move it up a little bit so i

can still

once more

here we go i can i can move it but it

touches the spindle perfect zero

so i can zero the z axis as well now

the carving tool is mounted into the

spindle

and so we can now probe the surface i

just need to put the sensor on the pcb

move the spindle up like let's say five

millimeters

here we go and then i can go over to the

cam software select the right menu

and start the probing

probing the surface i will select

10 millimeters as a probing grid and

two millimeters as a retractate and

let's go and scan the surface

there it goes it starts moving and

probing

cool this part is finished and the cnc

controller part of estelcam now knows

about the different heights of the board

looking at the g-code you can see that

the z-axis values vary

and when we mill you can actually hear

that singing sound of the z-axis while

it moves along the path

but enough talking let's go i will show

the milling process for a minute here

feel free to fast forward to the next

time marker but maybe it's interesting

to actually see how the z axis values

vary

and how the tool path is followed guys

short remark on security that spindle

moves at up to 25 000 revolutions per

minute

if you have long hair mine like me or

you wear a hoodie

and have laces here and anything gets

into the spindle

it will rip your hair off or strangle

you

the machine knows no mercy stow away

and fix everything that could get into

the spindle also

when we mill chips might be flying

around you don't want to get these in

your eyes

protect your eyes the machine will be

very loud

so protect your ears i'm not your father

but please protect yourself even in a

hobbyist environment

also always make sure you have an

emergency stop button

if things go really bad better lose your

workpiece than the whole mill or worst

case get injured

and keep your fingers away from the

spindle ok enough daddy talk

let's go

so

so

[Applause]

[Music]

[Music]

great now we have the isolations milled

and as you can see still cam stopped

because it knows that i need to change

the tool

let me quickly change the tool

also quick quality check here i just

want to see if you milk deep enough

and i will do that by checking if

we don't have a short circuit between

the

con conducting lines and the ground

plate

let me just grab my multimeter here

oh all good all beautiful perfect

[Applause]

and let's not forget to zero the z axis

because the tool has a different length

so we need to zero the z axis again

and let's go

[Applause]

so

[Applause]

[Music]

so

[Music]

the tool change quickly

last one

ah

so

[Music]

so great guys our board is finished and

we can now remove it

and we will once we remove it we will do

a first quality check and hold it

against the light

in order to see if all the carvings go

through the copper

we should actually see the light shine

through where the eye solutions have

been removed let me just

quickly remove the board

just cutting through the holding plates

here quickly

and then we should be able to get under

the board

oh shouldn't block the camera here sorry

so once i remove the holding plate

we should be able to get under the

the copper the chisel

and actually clap remove the plate here

we go

perfect as you can see it's it's it's

quite easy to actually remove it let me

just remove that adhesive tape here

all right come on get off

get off my board

nasty tape cool

now let's check that

and now we should see hope you can see

that in the camera here

we should see the light oh the eye this

is beautiful

we should see the the light shine

through

where the isolation has been removed

beautiful beautiful result right

yep

looks okay to me perfect

so the next thing we need to do is clean

the board actually what i'm doing is

i use this steel wool and just normal

dish liquid and water

first this will remove any copper chips

that might still be around or

in the tool path and second this will

also polish the surface

and make it fat and dust free for the

next step which is actually applying the

solder mask

but we will do this

in the next episode guys

i hope you like this episode please do

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guys many many thanks for watching stay

safe

stay healthy bye for now

you