Homebrew PCBs

On Mon, Jun 3, 2013 at 9:54 PM, johannes_taelman
<johannes.taelman@...m> wrote:
>
> Single side works great, now I want to move on to double-sided pcb. One of the advantages of CNC-contour-laser-plotting is that the artwork-to-machine offset is perfectly reproduceable, so I was thinking to predrill 3mm mounting holes in my eurocard-size pcb stock using a drill template.

Hello Johannes,

Have a look at the Stencil8 system:

  http://www.hoektronics.com/2012/10/27/super-simple-smt-stencil8/

The genius of the stencil8 system lies in the standardised 10mm pitch
for the mounting holes.  You could drill the bed of your bed on a 10mm
grid and do stencil8 right there and then.

Many of my PCB customers are using stencil8, and they and I really
love it.  When I do panelisation for them, they usually accept my
offer to give them a stencil8-compatible tooling rail.

For those of you who want to use stencil8 but don't have a mill, a
customer of mine sells pre-drilled mounting blocks:

  https://www.tindie.com/products/arachnidlabs/pcb-fixture-block-for-solder-paste-stencilling/

Johannes, you could make a similar block, which would let you take
stuff from your CNC mill to the workbench for doing stenciling.

Hope you like this idea!

Mitch.