Cutting blank PCB's to size

During my apprenticeship, the factory used to heat up the PCB in a oven before cutting them on a guillotine

Regards, Jason.

by the way, why you not put cut fiberglass Pcb into google and see what you get?

Regards, Jason.

We used to use a workshop -sized guillotine. ie. one used for cutting sheets of tin plate etc.

Ken

Go to a local sheetmetal shop where they'll probably cut it for nothing on one of their guillotines.

of their guillotines.

They won't, if they've done it before. Fiberglass dulls the cutting edges on a sheet metal shear in a hurry.

Try a hand-held nibbling tool, with the job finished off with a fine file. Works for me....

I'd be inclined to try a very fine toothed blade in a jig saw - might work - if a lot need to be done then a band saw might be the way to go

David

Sir Nigel Puke-Fuui wrote:

That's what I thought, I have a small guillotine with tool steel blades and I wasn't ever planning on cutting glass PCB's with it.

The OP might be better off with a table mounted power saw.

one of their guillotines.

The wear would be insignificant for the small number of cuts that the op would be requiring, particularly when guillotines are used to cut various metals with different guages, repeatedly, between sharpenings.

work -

A band saw works well except it hammers the crap out of the blade. A dremel with a cut off disc also works but heaps of nasty f/glass dust. I woder how well an old style paper guillotine would work - the ones with the heavy wooden base & 3/8" thick blade. There are small guillo's for trimming pcbs but they cost a couple of grand. rob

be requiring,

guages, repeatedly,

If you say so. Around here no one will let you use their metal sheers to cut fiberglass. I worked for a company that did asset recovery, where they had a really nice foot operated metal shear that they used to remove the gold plated fingers from PC boards. A couple days after they were sharpened you couldn't cut thin aluminum, let alone steel. They would wear the blades so bad they had to be replaced.

I agree. Years ago the place where I worked used to use a sheet metal guillotine to cut fibreglass boards. Mind you that all we ever cut with it for just the same reasons Michael has outlined.

For small runs I clamp a steel straight edge onto the board and use a box cutter blade to score a deep line on both sides of the board, then snap them apart. This method works okay provided you don't have very thin tracks near the edge of the board as insufficient scoring prior to snapping can create microfractures in the copper tracks.

Cheers, Alan

Thanks for your input. Yeah, I was thinking about a heavy duty guillotine too. Thing is, I don't really want to spend $100-300 for one and then find out it doesn't work! Damn things... so expensive!

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Thanks for your input. hmm, I wish i HAD those machines! =) No it would be only once in a blue moon really. It's just a hobby. Jason.

Hi, thanks for your input. Don't you find that the tool chips or cracks the fibreglass doing that? Is it difficult to do? Jason.

Hi, thanks for your input. Yeah we used to do that at school when I went... it was so quick and efficient! Jason.

Thanks for your input everyone! I just thought perhaps there was some sort of non-expensive tool or machine that is used to specifially cut PCB's in the electronics industry. Obviously there are different methods of doing this (going by all your replies), but most of which are too very expensive for something I'm only going to be doing once in a blue moon. Haha, I just felt stupid cutting them using a sharp utility knife and a steel ruler!!!

Sir Nigel Puke-Fuui's idea of a hand nibbling tool and a fine file sounds quite reasonable. What do people think of this idea?

Thanks again. Jason.

I've been doing that for the last few boards I've done, although I tend to get impatient and go for the snap a bit early and end up with stressed fibres along the edge of the board - it cleans up fairly easily on a full sheet of sandpaper on the bench, but I think I'll try a Falcon drill nibbler on my next board and see how it goes.

Depending on the shape, a nibbler can be a viable option. For simple straight-line cuts - which some use the knife/ruler/edge-of-table for - I use a very rare but inexpensive tool. It's called a ....

hacksaw.

Then I Nigel-Puke-it with a file to get clean edges.