Ant PCB Maker

Project: Ant PCB Maker
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Description	Creation of an Ant PCB Maker to prototype PCB design. Also create needed manuals on how to operate it.
Picture

Hardware completed. Documentation work in progress

Characeristics

• Maximum supported size of PCBs: 150mm x 80mm
• Smallest isolation routing achieved at this point: 0.3mm (with 30 degrees engraving bit)
• DC power supply: 12V 10A

Software used

• Flatcam 8.97 Beta
• bCNC

Software installation

The instructions below were tested on Debian 10 with contrib, non-free and backports repositories enabled.
First, install the following required packages using the following command
sudo apt update
sudo apt instal git python-pip python3-pip

Flatcam

Clone the flatcam git repository
git clone https://bitbucket.org/jpcgt/flatcam.git
Enter the flatcam dir and switch to the beta branch
cd flatcam
git fetch && git checkout Beta (At time of writing, we were using commit 2907a73)
Install the needed dependencies
chmod +x setup_ubuntu.sh
sudo ./setup_ubuntu.sh
Might be enough, but I aint installing my VM to make sure :-). So install the packages below as well:
sudo apt install python3-opengl python3-tk python3-fonttools libspatialindex-dev
pip3 install rasterio simplejson ezdxf svg.path freetype-py ortools vispy shapely
You are now able to start flatcam like so:
python3 FlatCAM.py
Go to Edit -> Preferences and set your units to mm.

bCNC

Run the following commands:
sudo apt install python-tk
pip2 install --upgrade bCNC
From now on, you can launch bCNC by running:
python2 -m bCNC

Generating gcode from gerber files

This guide assumes you have generated a gerber file from you design which is compatible with Flatcam.
Each CAD program is different in this regard, and is beyond the scope for the documentation of this page.

Generate isolation routing gcode

• Start Flatcam
• File -> Open -> Open Gerber
• Select your gerber file

On the right side, you will see a preview of your gerber file
Verify that the dimension are correct and the bottom left corner is located at coordinate 0,0
If something is wrong, go back to your CAD program and fix the problem with your gerber file

• On the left side, on the Project tab, Select your gerber file
• Switch to the Selected tab

We're assuming that a 30 degrees engraving bit will be used. If you're using something else, you'll need to tweak the below values.

• Set Tool Dia to 0.3
• Click FULL Geo

On the right side, you will now see red lines where you will be milling.
Verify that all traces are actually being isolated. If not, your clearance is <0.3mm at this point.
Fix your design and try again (or try your luck and use a smaller tool diameter)

• Configure the values as shown below:
  • Cut Z: -0.08
  • Travel Z: 2
  • Feed Rate X-Y: 150
  • Feed Rate Z: 150
  • Spindle speed: 12000
• Scroll down and hit Generate
• After generation finished, click save CNC Code
• Save as <yourfilename>.gcode

This file can later be used by bCNC to mill out your traces

Generate drilling gcode

TODO