Can I borrow your bandsaw? (UK)

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I can cut a way straighter line with a table saw, than with a bandsaw.

Carbide tip table saw blades work fine on G-10 although I will still prefer shears for the 1/16" and skinnier stuff.

I occasionally use 1/4" and 1/2" thick GP03 fiberglass for electromechanical applications and that stuff wears down even the carbide blades on my table saw fast. If anyone has suggestions for cutting GP03 fiberglass I'm all ears. Tool steel blades are just completely and instantly destroyed by GP03, BTW.

In many cases I've begun using polycarbonate instead of GP03 but in high-heat applications I'm sure that polycarbonate is a poor choice.

Tim.

Tim.

I liked Conan The Librarian! It suggests a way to cut your fiberglas circuit board!

Pay close attention at 0:42 in that video.

Thing is, a woodworking table saw is *WAY* too fast. You'll burn the PCB while ruining the blade, even if it's carbide. If you could slow it down to metalworking speeds (1000 RPM at most), it would work quite well.

Tim

LOL

Ian

Neat, I might just try that.

Cheers

Ian

Because this is the 'go naked' service from Spirit Circuits in the UK where they make you a prototype PCB without silk screen or solder resist for FREE - but is comes one one of their standard sized boards and you have to cut it to size. I've had a couple of smaller boards about 4 inches square that I cut with a hacksaw because edge accuracy was not important. For this one though it is.

Cheers

Ian

I have a pair of tin snips for cutting aluminium sheet - I could try those I guess.

Cheers

Ian

Why don't you just buy one? You can get some for under a $100.00, obviously it's not going to be professional grade but its not like you'll be using it daily anyway's.

I paid about $100.00 for mine on sale and bought a blade for cutting metal works; like a charm. Still going strong after 2 years and I've used it for more then just cutting PCB's. Well worth the money the things are quite handy to have.

One thing you should know if you have never used a band saw they can be tricky to cut straight lines so you may want to practice.

Or a diamond bladed wet saw table ($80 to $100). They can cut stones and tiles, pcb should not be a problem.

That's the problem. My wife won't let me buy and store it after occasional uses.

I wouldn't think so. They're not fast enough and I don't think the blades are good enough for FR4. A router with a carbide bit, sure.

Well, I had to try it, of course. Turns out it did a pretty nice job on the board (a dead 10-port switch I keep around for SMT practice after the good bits were salvaged). This was with the high-speed steel segmented blade.

Hard to cut a dead-straight line by hand (but it's close) so cutting just outside the "line" and squaring up with a disk sander or similar would probably be necessary for a really straight edge.

Wouldn't recommend it for volume work but it cuts nicely without any kickback. Noisy bugger, though. Scares the cats.

Eww, that stuff is too floppy for anything over a few inches. This for example:

Tim

Quite true; absolutely no disagreement. Fortunately, modern SMT components can squeeze quite a lot of functionality into small spaces.

I generally prefer to spend a couple of extra bucks and get a professionally manufactured board (using a batch/bundling service can really keep the costs under control) but it's fun to spin and etch one's own boards occasionally -- and it is a heck of a lot easier cutting and drilling 31 thou stock than it is with thicker material.

The problem I have, either way, is the drills always seem to fall apart after a few hundred holes. I don't seem to be putting any side force on them, and most of the time I go slowly. Sometimes, they just flop apart, not even a snap.

That's one reason I finally bought a basic stock of SMT parts. It's time to put the drills away, most of them at least. :)

It's still going to be interesting, though. I can't do soldermask, and I can't do silkscreen if I want to clean the rosin off (or at least, I can't keep it on through the process).

Tim

Have you seen the air powered version?

I use something called a wet tile saw (Google it) for my PCB cutting, and I do a lot of it. The smaller benchtop ones, made by Plasplugs and others, cost less than $80, cut straight and true, are hard to hurt yourself on (lots of students in my lab) and -- this is the best part -- leave all of that FR4 dust in the soup. The only downside is that the saw requires a 1/16" kerf. And you get wet. But I'd be lost without mine.

-Jim MacA.

Nope, I hadn't. It's a good idea but I'll bet that sucker is loud!

I'm rather surprised. Thanks. I don't have any FR4 around that I wanted to sacrifice. ;-)

;-) I'd likely use the router table. They're used to it.

are

If the blades could move up automatically I could see that as a horror movie prop. Errant teenage young lady face-up on the table.. rrrrrrEEEEEEEEEEEEErmrmrmrmr fade to black.

I haven't tried a scroll saw, but it should work okay (will dull quickly). They're small, can do inside cuts and relatively sharp inside corners, and many are able to suck their own swarf away. I don't like cutting FR4 (or even touching the edges of V-grooved boards after they are snapped)... too itchy.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany