Homebrew PCBs

Yes, those Burrs (you are calling them diamond cutters) work very 
well.  I use them for metal machining when I have very small cuts to 
make such as this morning.  I needed a .050" wide slot by .15" long in 
brass - total depth of cut .280".  This was for a spring loaded scribe 
I am making for the CNC router (Isolation scribing).

Those cutters would work great for cutting the PCB to size, but so 
far, I have not made any provisions for dust collection on the 
machine.  The drilling chips are relatively big and I am not worried 
about them getting airborn.  The chips (dust) from one of those 
cutters is certain to be smaller and more easily ingested into the 
lungs (of which I have not been to kind too for the last 45 years).

But, if I get to the point of having dust collection, I will be 
jumping at the chance to use the CNC router to cut the board to final 
size / shape as well.

Hopefully, this week I should be able to do my first real run through 
with CNC drilling and isolation scribing/etching.  I have a few more 
software bugs to fix though so not too sure.

The machine is working good for the most part though. I was machining 
some aluminum with it the other day - cut much better than I 
expected.  That little R/C car motor that I am using for the spindle 
seems to have enough power ;-)






> Even just because of the dust i would use a shear. I guess if one 
has a  
> CNC those diamond pattern routers would work fine (i think PCB 
houses use  
> them almost always for outline routing). With sufficient dust 
extraction  
> that should work well, and would be very precise too. I've seen 
those bits  
> on ebay.
> 
> ST
>