"A Machine PERFECT for Making PCBs at Home" Is what they said!

if something doesn't line up then you made a mistake. :)

Why not etch?????

Since it comes with a laser: Is the lid blocking the laser light or is it basically like those open frame laser cutters when it comes to laser safety?

That machine is very impressive but there's no way in hell I could ever justify the price point.

bro your boards only look like shit due to the way you are applying the mask, make yourself a simple silkscreen setup and use a silicon scraper, if thats too muck work look for pcb mask in a spray can

Honestly, the biggest issue with PCB's is via's. Using conductive paint and a chemical process is one option. But then again, if you're going chemicals anyways, you might as well use a SLA printer for the UV & solder mask, tinning via chemicals, etc... If you think about it, it almost sounds easier to just buy them for $3 from jlc.

Will the carvera cam software allow the double sided PCB?

I’m a machinist and I would really love to have a mill like this and the laser with it is really an awesome addition.

You might successfully CNC or laser etch single and double sided PCBs but never multilayer boards or through plated vias. So it's ok for Hobbyist playing around but not for real work or complex projects. Far cheaper to source boards from China. Even though when you do that you have given your design to them to reproduce and profit from. Doesn't anyone ever wonder why these Chinese produced PCBs are so cheap? So as long as you don't care that your time and effort designing electronics enriches someone else it's the only way to go. Excellent quality for nearly nothing!

Which photoresist and which uv-lamp did you use?

Honest, if im not going to sell it, I see zero problem with print it with laser and use acid to make the pcb. The only problem with this aproach are multi layer pcbs

This is cool, but $4000.00 is way to much for cnc of that size!

I just don't see any real value in this machine. For a similar price, I can buy a used real CNC machining center which will make far, far larger and more accurate machined parts, a decent Elegoo resin printer, a decent FDM printer, and several years worth of PCBs from PCB manufacturing services which look much better, oh, and a used CAR. More hipster garbage.

Jlpcb is pretty awesome. I had a project that needed some custom pwm controllers. So I ordered the minimum amount of boards so I have 4 of those boards in a drawer that will probably never be used again. But I always save stuff because you never know when something will break. My philosophy is to keep spares around if you can. I can’t count the number of times I’ve saved the day because I healed on to a extra component for 15 years and they were no longer available and would have required a lot of work to integrate a newer version of the item into the system and sometimes it is almost impossible to integrate the new part.

I've never understood why someone doesn't just make a PCB maker that uses ink. If you just had a printer that could print ink directly onto a copper plate, then you'd just have to drop it in some enchant solution and you'd have a PCB, and with double-sided copper plates you could do two layers. Doesn't seem like something that hard to even manufacture.

I am honestly impressed by this machine. I worked as a professional cnc CAM, CAD, 3D Modeling and 6 Axis CNC machinist for years but what I really want is a small tabletop machine that can do everything you've laid out in this video. I am 95% there to just ordering one of these.

It's cute, but practically useless. If cute is your goal, by all means spend your day reiterating your design and fine tuning the hw/sw. I'll be working on the next thing in my queue, and unpacking professional grade PCBs in about a week...

I will say, however, that the machine and its accessories are darned impressive, even at $4000 dollhairs.

I'm electronician since 1980 And i still practice electronic some times to times.
Nowadays the fashion is to use SMD components.
They are very good at high frequencies, and they can transfert hight currents too with very small pcbs, because they use small connexions.
SMD or throught holes Every components is soldered and if you wanna change one of them:
You need to unsolder it and resolder one. This means that the pads will be heated at least a minimum of 3 times.
1 during the factoring process.
1 during unsoldering process.
1 during resoldering process.

If you change the ship several times, the board will be caput because you'll unstick and even cut the thin pads.

For obscur reasons SMD chips are sometimes fragiles, especially, the nanometer technology.
Recently i wanted to run the homing on my CNC3018Pro and the smd chip Atmega328P burned suddenly.
It can be also because i used my ohmmeter and put a reverted voltage on the entries while testing the switch states.

So I retro-ingeneered that card and found it was not so bad, except some obscur things like some outputs but it's not a big problem.
Then i decided to redesign the card by changing the SMD version of the ship Atmega328P by a Atmega328-DIP28.

And i put it on an amovible support.

Then if i need to change now my chip : i don't even need to use an iron solder: just any screwdriver blade will do the trick.
I saw even power amplifiers whose power transistors where mounted on support.
You just had to remove a clips and unsrew the supports wich worked just as electric dominos with screws.

Often nowadays products are not made to be repaired.

There's another problem on all theses These sheet products :
The drivers are small rectangle cards with pins you introduce on the mainboard supports.
The problem is they have no polarizers and you may plug them the wrong side.

On another machine i was i so mutch in a hurry that i plugged it in the wrong size:
The result : The Driver burned, and made the Ship Atmega328 burn too.

It's not expensive so mutch to repair but with that craps you loose a lot of time and if you have not the composants in your stocks it's even worse.

So many people say : we have no time : OK but at least you loose more time.

Designing yourself is very long but has 2 advantages:

1: You understand everything
2: You may adapt and build your own professionnal models really better than what (the bullshit) they sell you! believe me!

As an example, on the next version of this product i'll design, you'll not be able to plug motor drivers upside down.

I've had great results from a generic "3040" ballscrew CNC that I've upgraded in three ways: 1) I replaced the odd spindle motor they provided with a high-quality 24000 RPM 3-phase spindle. 2) I swapped out the stock steppers and moved to closed-loop stepper/servos. 3) I added a probe input so I can capture a height map of the board before I ever cut it. Oh, and I chucked the printer-port stepper driver and went with a GRBLHAL networked controller that supports a ton of I/O and 5 axis. Anyway, the results are amazingly good, and definitely solid for creating your own boards, though obviously it's not going to add vias for you.

And the price is...?