Date: Wed, 1 Dec 2010 12:55:59 -0500
From: William Donzelli <wdonzelli at gmail.com>
? That is not
so hard, it is very common to build machines like this in
Brazil.
Second hand Taigs are fairly plentiful and not horribly expensive.
They are plenty capable of PC board drillwork, plus you can do all
sortf os other fun things with them as well.
I did a search on Taig. Interesting machines and the prices look
comparatively good. I was considering a lathe a while back for my
rocketry hobby...
Which machine would one need for automated drilling? It looks like the
CNC Mill would be needed. It's new price is $2200+. It would have to be
discounted an awful lot on the used market before I would think that was a
better buy than just having boards professionally fabricated.
I think the Micro Mill is mechanically capable of the job, but it doesn't
seem to have any type of automated controls, but perhaps I just don't
understand what a mill is.
Which leads to the other issue. In order to make an intelligent decision
about buying a drilling machine, it seems that I must become moderately
educated about the art of machining. Which is an interesting topic, but
not the hobby I was setting out to practice.
This is what ultimately stopped me from buying a lathe for rocketry.
Toner transfer PCB fabrication is attractive because I already have a
laser printer that serves another purpose. A laminator takes up little
space and is easy to put away. The etching tank is a bit of a pain, but
not too bad.
The problem is when I start adding in a milling machine, learning enough
about machining to make intelligent purchases, or building a drilling
machine out of a plotter, and the same two issues for electroplating,
which also kind of leads to building one's own power supply (AKA plating
rectifier).
All of these are interesting topics/diversions, but enough of them and one
isn't practicing hobby electronics any more, one is practicing PCB making
as the primary hobby.
Of course, if enough of my hobbies lead to machining, maybe I should take
it up. I don't know where I'd make the space for the tools though.
Someone else mentioned using a drill press with jigs. How would that
work? Would that be like having a pre-drilled template? That might be
interesting. I could see using the toner transfer procedure on a piece of
steel, then drilling the steel and then pegging boards to the steel for
future drilling in stacks. Might be a little hard on the drills if they
aren't well centered though.
Jeff Walther
