Mods, please consider editing the title to make this more clear (e.g. use "FlatCAM: free and open source PCB manufacturing software" or something). Thanks!
This could make a lot of small-scale prototyping projects that much easier - no messing around with Ferric Chloride and acetone, and no waiting for the PCB to be manufactured and sent back.
It really isn't interesting beyond the hack factor.
4 layers boards from China are cheaper than the equivalent 2-sided copper blanks. And, unless you still do everything with through-hole components, you have to plate the holes which takes you several days of futzing with nasty chemicals anyway.
Here's an actually disruptive idea for great hackers: rather than continuing to diddle with making PCBs that's been solved a hundred times over, come up with an open-source pick and place that can actually do 0402 and 0201 components.
It's got all the bits: gantry CNC, actuator with air, optical vision alignment via machine learning, accurate parts handling, and helps build boards. And it's a huge unsolved space.
Every time I've dealt with pick and place machines short of 7 figures, I spend more time dorking with the machine than actually populating boards.
I'm thinking of small prototypes or production runs of one or two pieces - had a situation last year when we needed to interface between a TCP connection on one side and a 12V trigger signal on the other - just a microcontroller with an optocoupler connected on one pin and an ethernet controller on the other side. We ended up spending quite a bit, between lockdowns, the minimum order, and our (my!) own messing up the circuit. Ended up just barely making it in time.
If we'd had this thing, we could have rapidly prototyped this board, discovered the mistake and made appropriate changes within a couple of days, instead of having to take more than a month...
No. It's very interesting. Yes, 4 layer boards from China are cheap, but I don't care about cheap. I care about not having to wait, and if I can get something good enough in an hour at home, that's going to beat waiting for perfect to get shipped every time. I don't care about plating the holes, I'll solder a wire through them on both sides, done.
> come up with an open-source pick and place that can actually do 0402 and 0201 components.
Why? What do I care about 0201 components? I use 0805 and I can solder them fine. This problem "really isn't interesting".
> [...] unless you still do everything with through-hole components, you have to plate the holes which takes you several days of futzing with nasty chemicals anyway.
There are copper press rivets you can buy at most PCB supply houses. No need for plating, although you do need the die set and press (although a drill press can be used). Furthermore, one can just do it the old fashioned way, with a soldered wire through connection. That's how I've done it for years.
Another case of HN's "headline mangler" doing more harm than good.
The truth is that many of articles whose titles it tries to bona-fide "sanitize" should be flagged by the users anyway as low-effort content (Like listicles, which get the number in front of the title removed, and so on).
Did somebody compile a list of transformations HN does on titles?
If you mean with FlatCAM specifically, I don't know.
If you mean this kind of application, I believe many should work. At least, I have made PCBs on a Shapeoko 3 XXL ( https://carbide3d.com/ ) without any issue (which was not a given: These machines are on the large side for such applications).
I bet many people will say that today's circuit boards are so cheap and making one at home is just too troublesome - and these days you can't make a good digital system on a two-layer circuit boards without a ground plane and controlled impedance, so why bother? And the usual reply is that you can get a board immediately without waiting, and for low-speed analog circuits or small microcontrollers, two-layer boards are usually adequate.
I believe while both are true, there's also an important application that is not always mentioned - RF prototypes. It's still very expensive to buy a circuit board made of specialized low-loss RF laminate, such as the Rogers series. But raw boards can be purchased at a reasonable price. Having a CNC/milling machine can be extremely useful to prototype RF planar circuits in the GHz realm.
> I bet many people will say that today's circuit boards are so cheap and making one at home is just too troublesome
I've heard this a lot and can never understand it. It's like saying "why use a 3D printer when you can get the same thing for $50 or $10 and a month of waiting?". Because sometimes I want a good-enough thing for cheap now, not a perfect thing for expensive later.
The reason is that ordering PCBs take ~2 weeks and cost 6$, where any time invested in making them yourself is more expensive. Additionally a 3D printer is much less of a hassle to use (basically level the bed, start the print and wait) than etching PCBs.
The only reason for doing them yourself are (if you already have all the required things):
- Getting them really quick (~hours)
- Getting them somewhat quick (saving on shipping, around 30$)
- Wanting to
With ~everyone using smd components today, soldermask is also pretty much a must-have which makes doing it yourself even more annoying.
In comparison to 15 years ago, where doing it yourself was the only option, it's really understandable that a lot of people just don't anymore.
Yes, exactly. I always want them really quick, because I'm in the middle of a hacky build I'll always make one of. Same for ~all my maker friends, it sucks to leave a build right in the height of motivation to wait for PCBs, so most of them use perfboards or similar ugly hacks. CNCed PCBs would be a great improvement.
I'd argue completely differently: PCB assembly shops are usually unwilling to work with externally-produced PCBs, so there's no point in making the PCB yourself.
Unless, of course, you are really good at soldering. But for me, 0.5mm pitch ICs or 0.4mm pitch connectors are way out of my motor skill league.
Of course, at that level, it's mostly down to using a pick&place robot, which could easily be shared by multiple people. So I imagine that in a few years, there'll be P&P centers where you can rent such a robot by the hour, similar to how there are 3D printing communities nowadays.
> PCB assembly shops are usually unwilling to work with externally-produced PCBs, so there's no point in making the PCB yourself.
I think these PCB processes and machines are all really designed for prototypes and experiments, it's the aspect that they're great for. If you find that you need to send them to an external PCB assembly shop, you probably shouldn't make your own board to begin with. Same for externally-produced professional PCBs - I order a raw board rather than a fully-assembled prototype because my chip is an uncommon part and they don't offer this chip for prototype assembly.
> Unless, of course, you are really good at soldering. But for me, 0.5mm pitch ICs or 0.4mm pitch connectors are way out of my motor skill league.
Speaking of soldering, I have no problem with 0.5mm pitch LQFP ICs with a good stereo microscope - for me I can just use brute force. However, my own problem is 0.5mm QFN - I have to use stencil printing and reflow soldering since I'm not good enough to hand solder that. I find a high quality board with accurate solder mask between the pin (no bridging), and with ENIG surface finishing (maximum flatness) are extremely helpful. I don't think a simple DIY PCB can handle these applications (but I'd be glad to find otherwise). But again, this was a 1 Gbps+ board.
Conclusion: I still believe DIY PCBs have their places for prototypes and experiments, but if one argues it's not useful because it cannot be assembled by a PCB shop or it cannot reach 1 Gbps, it would be demanding too much and not really fair for these simple boards.
Is it possible these days to create 6 layer board at home? Let's say, could I get tools to do it for less than $10k?
I am tired of sending my projects to China and domestic companies are prohibitively expensive for a hobbyist.
edit: I had one 2 layer board made locally for almost $500 and that without even a silk screen and I got a ten 6 layer boards for about $300 from China including shipping and taxes.
This software is awesome. And it can also be used for so many other things than PCBs. For example, I have used it with vertical printers in past.
With that said, I wish there were more cheap hardware to go with it. Come on Shenzen, do your thing!
Also, note that if you use glass fiber PCBs, the particles created by PCB milling are very dangerous and can give you cancer. You might want to switch to compressed paper PCBs instead (I think they are called F2 or something similar)
What CNC would you suggest for small production at home? I would use it for prototyping, personal projects and possibly testing boards layouts before sending them to a service.
Hobbyist level, max 2 layers and mostly THT or bigger SMT, although being able to work with SOT* parts would come handy one day, but I have no such requirements today. These are things I could easily do by hand the old way using pen, pad transfers, and FeCl3, however they would be tedious to produce in more than one piece at a time, and I'm not living anymore in a place where I can safely use etching solutions without risking to harm other people and/or pets, so I have to look for a CNC.
Speed is not a problem, decent accuracy would be enough, size and cost would matter however.
Tnx for any advice!
29 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 62.0 ms ] threadBut no, this is a CAM = computer aided manufacturing software like KiCAD.
Cam != CAM
Mods, please consider editing the title to make this more clear (e.g. use "FlatCAM: free and open source PCB manufacturing software" or something). Thanks!
This could make a lot of small-scale prototyping projects that much easier - no messing around with Ferric Chloride and acetone, and no waiting for the PCB to be manufactured and sent back.
4 layers boards from China are cheaper than the equivalent 2-sided copper blanks. And, unless you still do everything with through-hole components, you have to plate the holes which takes you several days of futzing with nasty chemicals anyway.
Here's an actually disruptive idea for great hackers: rather than continuing to diddle with making PCBs that's been solved a hundred times over, come up with an open-source pick and place that can actually do 0402 and 0201 components.
It's got all the bits: gantry CNC, actuator with air, optical vision alignment via machine learning, accurate parts handling, and helps build boards. And it's a huge unsolved space.
Every time I've dealt with pick and place machines short of 7 figures, I spend more time dorking with the machine than actually populating boards.
If we'd had this thing, we could have rapidly prototyped this board, discovered the mistake and made appropriate changes within a couple of days, instead of having to take more than a month...
> come up with an open-source pick and place that can actually do 0402 and 0201 components.
Why? What do I care about 0201 components? I use 0805 and I can solder them fine. This problem "really isn't interesting".
There are copper press rivets you can buy at most PCB supply houses. No need for plating, although you do need the die set and press (although a drill press can be used). Furthermore, one can just do it the old fashioned way, with a soldered wire through connection. That's how I've done it for years.
The truth is that many of articles whose titles it tries to bona-fide "sanitize" should be flagged by the users anyway as low-effort content (Like listicles, which get the number in front of the title removed, and so on).
Did somebody compile a list of transformations HN does on titles?
You can buy devices 10x cheaper from China, but there are very few dedicated to PCB milling.
Here is a very thorough writeup of doing PCB milling with this type of machine: https://forum.electricunicycle.org/topic/11205-milling-pcbs-...
I believe while both are true, there's also an important application that is not always mentioned - RF prototypes. It's still very expensive to buy a circuit board made of specialized low-loss RF laminate, such as the Rogers series. But raw boards can be purchased at a reasonable price. Having a CNC/milling machine can be extremely useful to prototype RF planar circuits in the GHz realm.
There are places in the world where even DHL Sameday needs 1 month to get.
I've heard this a lot and can never understand it. It's like saying "why use a 3D printer when you can get the same thing for $50 or $10 and a month of waiting?". Because sometimes I want a good-enough thing for cheap now, not a perfect thing for expensive later.
The only reason for doing them yourself are (if you already have all the required things):
- Getting them really quick (~hours)
- Getting them somewhat quick (saving on shipping, around 30$)
- Wanting to
With ~everyone using smd components today, soldermask is also pretty much a must-have which makes doing it yourself even more annoying.
In comparison to 15 years ago, where doing it yourself was the only option, it's really understandable that a lot of people just don't anymore.
Unless, of course, you are really good at soldering. But for me, 0.5mm pitch ICs or 0.4mm pitch connectors are way out of my motor skill league.
Of course, at that level, it's mostly down to using a pick&place robot, which could easily be shared by multiple people. So I imagine that in a few years, there'll be P&P centers where you can rent such a robot by the hour, similar to how there are 3D printing communities nowadays.
I think these PCB processes and machines are all really designed for prototypes and experiments, it's the aspect that they're great for. If you find that you need to send them to an external PCB assembly shop, you probably shouldn't make your own board to begin with. Same for externally-produced professional PCBs - I order a raw board rather than a fully-assembled prototype because my chip is an uncommon part and they don't offer this chip for prototype assembly.
> Unless, of course, you are really good at soldering. But for me, 0.5mm pitch ICs or 0.4mm pitch connectors are way out of my motor skill league.
Speaking of soldering, I have no problem with 0.5mm pitch LQFP ICs with a good stereo microscope - for me I can just use brute force. However, my own problem is 0.5mm QFN - I have to use stencil printing and reflow soldering since I'm not good enough to hand solder that. I find a high quality board with accurate solder mask between the pin (no bridging), and with ENIG surface finishing (maximum flatness) are extremely helpful. I don't think a simple DIY PCB can handle these applications (but I'd be glad to find otherwise). But again, this was a 1 Gbps+ board.
Conclusion: I still believe DIY PCBs have their places for prototypes and experiments, but if one argues it's not useful because it cannot be assembled by a PCB shop or it cannot reach 1 Gbps, it would be demanding too much and not really fair for these simple boards.
edit: I had one 2 layer board made locally for almost $500 and that without even a silk screen and I got a ten 6 layer boards for about $300 from China including shipping and taxes.
Long answer: no. you can't get the precision needed to correctly drill and align the 5 boards (for 6 layers) at home.
If you can, this means your boards are probably simple enough to not need 6 layers.
With that said, I wish there were more cheap hardware to go with it. Come on Shenzen, do your thing!
Also, note that if you use glass fiber PCBs, the particles created by PCB milling are very dangerous and can give you cancer. You might want to switch to compressed paper PCBs instead (I think they are called F2 or something similar)