I was finally successful at milling a PCB. I need to publish a draft post from a few days ago that goes through the steps to make it happen, but I’ll share a few pictures of the success.
I bought a vacuum pump off of eBay not too long ago to use for a vacuum clamping system. While its works well, (and I’ll post about it later), there are two fan blades on each side that are exposed. I wanted to cover them up to prevent a foot, hand or other object from making its way into the blades.
I decided that it would be easiest to make a cover on my laser cutter. So I thought up a design, modeled it in a 3d program, and it came out like this …
I had originally hoped on doing a swirl, but I settled for a more classic pattern. So the next step is to turn it into something that is usable. The laser cutter acts like a print driver, and I’ve typically used Corel Draw to send the images to it. While some may grimace at the product, its commonly used for laser cutting systems. The dxf that I imported (and duplicated) looks a bit like this.
Notice that the color is red and that the lines are hairline width. This tells the print driver to vector cut those lines as opposed to raster cutting. There is a tremendous difference in the speed of one approach versus the other. The magic happens when I click print …
You can see from the video that it is completing the outer circle on the first cover. I’m using 1/8″ acrylic because its all thats required and I have plenty on hand. When the cuts are complete, it looks like the following:
I think it cut those out pretty well. You can see the first set of cuts on the left were from measurement errors. Like the old adage says, “Measure twice and cut once”. So lastly, I have a picture of the cover installed. It actually came out very well. The size was perfect. I think the restraints could be a bit better, but they will do just fine.
I started sewing just over a year and a half ago. I thought it would be really neat to have an embroidery machine to add personalization to some of the things I sew. I love making gifts for people, especially for babies. So I put it on my Christmas list. After finding out that my husband and I are going to have another baby in July, I told my husband that I didn’t want it anymore. I was worried that it would be a while before I would really have the time to use it. Regardless, there was a large box for me under the tree with a Brother 270D Sewing and Embroidery Machine in it!
With all of the excitement with Christmas and just being tired all the time, it wasn’t until today that I was able to give it a try. I sat down with the manual to get acquainted with my new machine. I decided to just use the thread that was already threaded in the machine since this machine threads much differently than my other sewing machine. I sewed a few straight lines just to make sure the thread was threaded properly and that the machine did work before trying to embroider.
Once that was done, I prepped my fabric by ironing some interfacing to my fabric. I put it onto the hoop and attached the embroidery unit to the machine. I selected a simple bow pattern that used only one color for my first test. It didn’t come out perfect. There is a place on one side where the thread is not laying flat against the fabric. After I looked at the thread in the machine, I found that it was all purpose sewing thread. I am off to find some embroidery thread so that I can try it again.
Here is a picture of the finished product:
