Homebrew PCBs

On Sat, May 10, 2014 at 10:10 PM, Jean-Paul Louis louijp@...
[Homebrew_PCBs] <Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

> You’re going to wear your punch very fast as FR4 is loaded with glass which is very abrasive.
> Unless you can have a very high resistance punch which would cost hundreds of dollars.
> I used a punch press to cut boards in a previous job. The wear of the punches and dies were very costly.

This is my concern as well.  This is part of the reason I want to go
with as thin a board as I can get away with.  Do you recall how many
cuts you were getting per punch/die set?

> so we replaced the whole process by a router. But that was for 0.062” FR4.

That is my other option.  I am looking at something on the order of
several hundred boards for my prototype run, and if I go into
production beyond that I will probably have the boards professionally
made.  There are still a few unknowns, and I would prefer to work them
out making the PCBs myself before setting up a job.

Speaking of which, does anyone know a board house that is friendly
towards lots of (cutting) routing?

> You have also to make sure that there is no copper in the cut area.

Yes, I had figured that the punch could damage any traces along the
cut.  That shouldn't be a problem.

-p.