Using the CNC mill

Warning:

Don't mill printed circuit boards made of "glass fiber epoxy resin" (FR4). Small pieces of milled glass fiber should not be inhaled. It may cause health problems.

1. Designing the PCB

There are several ways for designing PCB. For example you can use the following softwares:

• Fritzing (easy to use) https://fritzing.org/
• Kicad (more professional) https://www.kicad.org/

Lets start with Fritzing.

That looks already quite good. After you finished the PCBs you have to export it as a "Extender Gerber (RS-274X)"-Format! Select the folder where you would like to save it.

2. Generating the G-code

In this step you have to generate G-code with the Gerber files. G-code or sometimes called nc-code (numeric controll code) tells the CNC mill when to turn on the spindle or to which position it should move.

We will use FlatCam (http://flatcam.org/) to generate the G-Code.

• Start FlatCAM
• Click on [File] -> [Open Gerber ...]

• Select the ".gbl" (copper bottom) file
• Now select the file in the Project list and click on [selected]

3. Milling the PCB