Useful and interesting post written by Tom Austin on the MaxNC User group http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MaxNC-users .
I've noticed a lot of messages about using a MaxNC to make a PCB. Here's my $.02 - you can do what you want with it - but I hope it helps someone.
I've made several boards using a MaxNC 10ol. The quality of the boards was very high and looked very professional.
I used Eagle PCB
http://www.cadsoft.de to design the board. Eagle PCB output the necessary G-Code to *etch* the board, drill the board & cut holes/pockets. Eagle is nice in that you can add custom programming to get anything you want out of it. I wrote a custom program to automate the entire milling process.
For etching I used a 60 degree v chaped bit
http://www.thinktink.com and controlled the depth to get the cut width I was after.
For drilling I used micro drill bits
http://www.drillbitcity.com .
For cutting poskets and holes I used a router bit
http://www.thinktink.com .
To ensure I always worked with a flat base I mounted a 1" thick piece of plastic to the table. I forget the type of plastic, but anything that cuts well will work.
http://www.mcmastercarr.com .
To keep the table level I picked up a cheap fly cutter and pass it over the table cutting .002" - .005" to clean off any roughness or marks from previous operations .
I mount the PCB material to the table using double stick tape (Home Depot) .
This worked well for me, but I havn't made a board in 6 months due to other commitments .
Some notes that I picked up .
make sure
backlash compensation is on and calibrated if you have
backlash your holes won't line up correctly and trace widths will be off you can cut at full speed (at least the etching) with an OL don't cut too deep and get tangled in the tape too much with the router bits - I broke one because it got gummed up .
The code I've written for Eagle PCB completly automates the file generation process and makes things very easy to set up. I'm sorry, but at this time the code is not in a form tht it can be easily shared & I don't ahve the time to work on it at the moment. When I have time (which won't be soon) I'll clean it up and post it somewhere .
This isn't necessarily the best solution and hasn't been tested on large run boards. it ws used for protyping a project I was working on .
If you have any further questions, please post them here so that all can benefit .
Tom Austin .
Xonitec, Inc. .
If you are using Eagle PCB ( http://www.softcad.com ) you can try to use the following ULP programs ftp://ftp.eriskouma.com/pub/cnctimer/gcode.zip to generate G-code files ready-to-run from Eagle.
