tiny table saw

Yep, I have a similar tabletop saw from Minitool. You are right about needing to fit the right kind of blade for fiber-glass pcbs. It is slower than snapping a pre-scored or routed breakouts but does the job OK.

piglet

I use a cheap tile saw. It already comes with a diamond blade, and the water keeps the nasty glass dust to a minimum.

Looks nice.

The 10mm arbor is kind of small for the milling machine solid carbide slitting saw blades. I think 16mm is standard in 60mm (also 50/63mm) dia.

Probably could make a part or two on the lathe to bush it up use standard metric slitting saws eg. 60mm x 0.8mm. Standard sizes in 60mm are 0.3/0.4/0.5/0.8/1.0/1.2/1.5/2/2.5/3/3.5/4/5mm

If I specify v-score, some of the crabbier pcb houses whine that I am trying to get lots of boards for the price of one. Some do that anyhow.

I used to shear them up and then build by hand, but some of the leadless and BGA parts need to be assembled on the big pick-and place, and cutting up in advance messes up the programming.

Also V-groove scored edges are ragged and have skin-irritating fibers sticking out. A clean cut might avoid most of that.

mandag den 25. januar 2021 kl. 23.21.55 UTC+1 skrev Spehro Pefhany:

a diamond blade cut FR4 like butter

You mean they can't tell just by looking at the boards?

We have a sort of pizza cutter that does pretty good on v-scores, but it still is a little ragged. Sanding helps, if you don't mind that hazard.

We're ordering the saw, so we'll get one of those too. The kit comes with the carbide toothed saw.

I expect them to charge by area and layers and drills and stuff. The circuits are none of their business.

tirsdag den 26. januar 2021 kl. 01.16.23 UTC+1 skrev John Larkin:

if your boards had v-score between the boards they would have to more scoring, so look at the extra charge as charge for scoring more than the outline of the area you paid for ;)

The hazard exists in the dust from a carbide saw, too; you'll want a good air movement and filtering setup... glass fiber isn't pleasant if it gets onto skin. A shop-vac should be dedicated to such a saw.

A cheaper, more hobbyist choice than John's saw might be the $70 wet abrasive tile saw from HarborFreight. Takes care of the dust, handles up to 7" wide cuts and being HF, I'm sure coupons come along regularly.

Sure, charge for scoring. But don't charge as if they were separate board orders.

That looks interesting. I like that price.

We bought a different one that is quite a bit more expensive:

I do like the byrnes. I've made some very precise PCB cuts with it.

ood air

rasive

ide cuts

My lifelong experience with tiny, miniature tools is they rapidly become too small.

Nothing wrong with the tool - the fault is in the user, who gets more ambitious. Whether this is a good idea depends on the exact physics involved, which can be complicated.

We ordered one, with both the carbide and diamond saws. I'll let the group know how it works.

We can use a shop vac to slurp up the dust. We wouldn't use this saw often, just to chop up loaded prototype boards. I have an old hane shear that I use to cut up copperclad FR4, or un-stuffed proto boards. I'm not allowed to use the good foot shear on epoxy-glass. I own it, but the machinist guy is bigger than me. He does let me use the bandsaw to cut up Tartine sourdough.