Newsgroups: comp.robotics
Path: brunix!sgiblab!sgigate.sgi.com!olivea!uunet!hobbes!earth.armory.com!rstevew
From: rstevew@armory.com (Richard Steven Walz)
Subject: Re: CCNC verses laser printers
Organization: The Armory
Date: Thu, 24 Mar 1994 10:11:38 GMT
Message-ID: <Cn5yzF.1FJ@armory.com>
References: <2kkm1g$ikl@handler.Eng.Sun.COM> <Xka6ic4w165w@seanews.akita.com> <2mddiu$le4@handler.eng.sun.com>
Sender: news@armory.com (Usenet News)
Nntp-Posting-Host: deeptht.armory.com
Lines: 30

In article <2mddiu$le4@handler.eng.sun.com>,
Chuck McManis <cmcmanis@pepper.Eng.Sun.COM> wrote:
>Dan Mauch comments on the drill router pc board maker...
>
>In article <Xka6ic4w165w@seanews.akita.com> (Daniel R. Mauch) writes:
>>I also understand that it takes forever to route/mill aboard. I really 
>>think that milling the traces out with a .008 end mill is very 
>>inefficient. Who wants to wait four hours to mill a 6 inch board?
>
>Well, they don't remove all of the copper that a true etch would. They
>just mill around the traces to create 'island' traces. On the other
>tentacle, if I can strap a piece of copper clad into this thing and
>come back 4 hours later and pick up a PC board, I can use that 4
>hours to do something else. If I etch it by hand I'm a bit more
>involved in the process. None of the local PCB shops offer 4 hour
>turnaround time. My only gripe is that the thing costs $14,000 which
>seems a _bit_ extreme. But if they are selling them their marketing
>guy has a lot better feel for what the market will bear than I do.
>-Chuck McManis			     All opinions in this message/article are
>Internet: cmcmanis@firstperson.COM  be who you think it is.
-------------------------------
I can well appreciate the power of having a CNC route boards on a one off
basis for development and then each further cut, but I see Dan's point that
for production of more than one device that photo seems to be the way to
go. Even inking the tracks in by hand is slower than photo! You may have to
be there to do the developing, but I can go draw a very small board and
etch it in under a half hour, so I can't imagine having the photo-etch on a
six inch being any worse if you are scaled up and have the transparency.
-Steve Walz   rstevew@armory.com

