Proteus Software

[rsocor01]

Bert,

I'm with Steve and Alain on this one. Many years ago I used PSpice a lot when I was in school. I still use it sometimes but only when I need to know the ins and outs of any circuit. It is a lot easier to run a sim to find out some values in the circuit than to calculate currents, voltages, etc. Analog and digital circuits don't mix well in this simulator. So, I prefer the "breadboard simulator". I have many breadboards laying around in my office, so when I want to test a circuit I think it is more reliable to do it this way.

My mill is a Fireball V90. I replaced the stock bed with 1/2 inch aluminum plate milled flat to match the gantry. I run between 15 and 30 inch per minute depending on the part. Using a 30 degree point I can do 44 pin TQFP parts on half ounce copper.

Dave,

I found this cool video about a Fireball V90 demo. How do you trasfer the gerber files to this machine ? Using V-tabs you might be able to make many boards in the same run. It would be cool to see a video of your machine creating PCB boards .

[mackrackit]

Here is a short vid

The finished board can be seen here.
http://www.picbasic.co.uk/forum/cont...USB-SD-LOGGING

I use KiCad for schematics and board layout. I save the board as a DXF so I can bring it into a CAD (Design CAD) to add stuff like mounts or to nest parts together. Then CamBam is used to to make the G code. EMC2 runs the machine.

I am still pretty new to CNC stuff so I have some fine tuning to do, but it seems to work well.

[cncmachineguy]

Hey guys, thanks for the insight! I went ahead and bought the software as for me it seemed the pros outweight the cons. I hope to enjoy the software as much as Darrel does, but only time will tell. The PCB design already seems it will pay for itself.

@Dave, thanks for the info on the V90. I have been thinking about a small mill for some time. That looks like a pretty nice system. BTW, if you want/need any info on CNC machining just ask, I've been in this business for about 18 years now. Happy to lend a hand.

[mackrackit]

Thanks Bert.
The biggest problem so far was getting the bed level with the gantry. Now I think a floating cutting head would be the best way to go. Along with a vacuum table.

[cncmachineguy]

Vac tables are really cool. Just remember a shop vac doesn't really pull any vacuum. I measured it once and it got to maybe 1 inch of mercury.The best is if you cann afford a true vacuum pump Gast brand is really good. next best thing is a vacuum generator. They run from compressed air and will get 29 inches with a good seal. Downside is there is now a great deal of flow.

The clamping force boils down to this: ((vac in inches)/2)*surface area in inches. so for instance: 4x6 card is 24 in^2 with a vac of 29, you get 29/2=14.5*24=348 lbs of force. Sounds like a lot, but keep in mind when milling all the forces are side forces.

but you can quickly see why the shop vac won't work it would have 12 lbs of clamping force!!

[mackrackit]

Thanks again Bert. I made a note of your calcs. Looks like the vac table could end up costing more than the mill...

[cncmachineguy]

If you already have compressed air, the generators are pretty cheap, 30-60 dollars. If not then they can get pricy to set up. I've used this in the shop for a vac jig:
http://www.mcmaster.com/#vacuum-generators/=aj7hr9
part number : 41605K14
But I think double sided tape may work just as well for what you are doing.

[mister_e]

Hey guys, thanks for the insight! I went ahead and bought the software as for me it seemed the pros outweight the cons. I hope to enjoy the software as much as Darrel does, but only time will tell. The PCB design already seems it will pay for itself.

Good, keep user posted here, sure enough there's a ton who also want to hear about it and how you manage the debugging to work with PBP.

Some good advices over there I guess:
http://www.picbasic.co.uk/forum/show...6303#post96303