Cutting blank PCB's to size

And the quickest, easiest, and cheapest way to do this is with a pair of tin snips, but be warned that the board edge wont be real happy, or any tracks near it. Give it a try on some old boards first to test for results.

Don...

But a jigsaw can be had for under $20 these days - KMart or one of those cheapy auto shops

David - who thinks a jigsaw is a handy thing to have anyway

In "the business", either a guillotine is used, or the PCB drill file "cuts" the boards up by specifying strokes with a cutter bit. Obviously, these cuts must be done as the very last step in the manufacturing process :-)

Craig

I use woodworking tools.

I mark out the edges of the board with a ball-point pen or a scriber. and then saw along the marked lines with a tenon saw, leaving a bit of waste.

I then clamp the blank in a Workmate, and using a hand smoothing or block plane remove the scrap down to the scribed line, checking the squareness of the board with a try-square.

I's pretty hard on the plane, the blade needs frequent honing to keep it sharp, and you'll find the saw won't be much good for anything else either -- but it's cheap and I've got all day to do this. The result is quite precise.

Not recommended for high production but it suits me fine for only a few boards a week.

Cheers de MikeN

Yep, pretty hard on the tools. Fibreglass boards are pretty hard on standard HSS drill bits too. Tungsten Carbide tipped generally tends to last longer.

Cheers, Alan

be requiring,

guages, repeatedly,

Are you sure of that? What are the optimum respective cutting angles for shear blades for metal and fibreglass?

You can save the plane and use a bench-mounted belt sander or even a disk sander to true-up the edges. Works a treat, but wear a facemask.

For small runs I just clamp the PCB and run a mill file over the edges and vacuum up the dust. :-) Still not overly keen on the score and snap method, but if the tracks aren't too fine near the board edges it shouldn't become an issue.

Oh the joys of DIY :P

Cheers, Alan

would be requiring,

guages, repeatedly,

Did you read the first 17 words of my sentence? Emphasis on "small number of cuts".

cuts".

Yep, you made a fudge statement that I know from various cutting devices isn't necessarily true. some blades do not like even being near foreign material.

"Alan Rutlidge" > it sharp, and you'll find the saw won't be much good for anything else

Thanks guys.

Hi Alan,

I found it depended on what speed you ran the drills at: TC drills run well in a fast PCB drill but I find they snap easily and are expensive. I found wire gauge HSS drill in a normal drill press last for quite a long time but burn out and go blunt in a Dremel almost immediately.

Even at the fastest speed of a small tabletop press they seem to go on forever and do drill fast: I retired some last month from bluntness. I'd estimate they did close to 1000 holes minimum.

cuts".

True enough for the foreign material. To answer your previous post first, it's been >25yrs since I was working with a 10' sheet metal guillotine, and I don't recall the blade angle exactly, but it must have been only a degree or two. Much greater than that and the grips that held the metal down on the bed during the cut would allow the metal to rotate along the cut, and you'd have a curved cut instead of a straight cut. I wouldn't have a clue what the angle would be for a guillotine that specialises cutting copper/fibreglass laminates, as I've never seen one, but someone here may be able to tell us. But then again, it's not really relevant to the original post, is it?

The op'er has the option of either taking someone's advice or rejecting it. He can take his boards to a sheetmetal shop, or a pcb manufacturer (they do still exist in Australia), cut it with a knife and a ruler, nibbler, etc, so long as he can get it done with the minimum of fuss.