Re: DFX to Gerber?



"cavelamb himself" <cavelamb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:jaudnY4xAY9UYXHVnZ2dnUVZ_rfinZ2d@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Den wrote:
Here is a pic of the board.
http://www.home.earthlink.net/~cavelamb/proof.htm#cpu
It's not real big, but way too much to hand drill at home!

--

Richard

(remove the X to email)



You can drill that by hand no problems, probably take 15 to 20 minutes.
Get some HSS 3mm shank pcb drill bits and whack them in the drill press
on max rpm. I find they blunt very quickly using FR4 fibreglass board as
the drill speed is not high enough. If you can get it try using phenolic
board, its cheaper and drills way easier. I've found the carbide
drillbits a too brittle for hand use in a drill press, they do cut
superbly though.

To line up the two sides print to overhead film on a laser and lay them
back to back, line up the pad holes and run some tape down the side of
the two overhead films. Have the taped bit an inch or two from the edge
of the pcb to minimise the error due to the thickness of the pcb that
will be placed between them. Expose one side, then the other. It takes a
littke care but I'm pretty rough and have not had too many problems.
Increase pad and track sizes as much as practical - makes it more robust
for homeshop manufacturing.

For outsourcing it maybe look at www.pcbcart.com I found them
inexpensive, quick & good quality. For a Chinese company their email
communications were fast and intelligible.

You are a braver soul than I, Dan.
I wouldn't even consider that short of end of the world conditions!

The mechanical aspects aside, the next step after drilling is replating
with another 2 ounces of copper. Or hand solder both sides of every via?
Pass!

The tracks on this one are pretty much maxed out at .013.
Making them .015 eats up the clearance between pads right quick.



Yeah, I sometimes make the tracks as wide as possible & neck them down
between the pads. I'm not sure hpw much of this you've done, but IC sockets
are cheap, especially for one offs or low volume stuff. They make it easy to
solder both sides if needed (pseudo vias) and also for fault
finding/debugging. Maybe instead of replating just tin or hand tin with
solder the tracks that need to be heavier or alternately use heavier weight
copper cladding to begin with. Have fun!


<<snipped>>


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