@sphawes did an awesome video about laser carving a PCB (FR1). Results were way better than I would have expted at least from the titles. I’m always approaching these things with healthy skepticism, but this is a great iterative approach to figure out the settings required.
Probably not the thing I’d use for many boards, which are cheap and amazingly precise from overseas vendors (and $$$ from domestic, if required). But I’d probably look at this over a PCB mill if I needed faster iteration times than DHL allows.
Yeah, fiber IR lasers are pretty cool and the price has come down quite a bit. But still, we are talking well over a grand for the smallest one. Unless I had a regular need - maybe a couple a boards a week, I would definitely give it a pass if just for boards. When I can get 2 and 4 layers boards with solder mask, plated through hole, silkscreen, milled outlines for $20 delivered in less than a week, it is a pretty hard sell. Add in cheap assembly services and I have a hard time justifying a purchase for making PCBs. And a fiber laser doesn’t cut a lot of materials like wood and plastic for example so it’s not as versatile as other types of lasers. I could see one for a makerspace or very well equipped lab.
FWIW though, there are a lot of other cool applications of fiber lasers for cutting and marking metal. Front and back metal panels with engraved/marked labels are pretty cool.
I love that fiber lasers are coming down to a price that allows for this. As he was scrolling through aliexpress or whatever, I was seeing $2-5k prices… that’s in the territory of a nice desktop 3D printer and I think that’s a reasonable cost to unlock this high-speed proto capability for a small team of engineers doing rapid prototyping. There’s value in not having to break your concentration for 7 days while you wait for a board to come back. Iterate your design, and 90 minutes later you’re up and testing your iteration.
But MAN… that holy grail of DIY vias continues to elude us. I didn’t know about those rivets, so that’s cool, but it’s still a manual process. Once upon a time in the chemical-bath-era of DIY PCB rapid prototyping (10-15 years ago?), I did a few dozen vias on a 2-layer by drilling holes through via rings and plugging/soldering with uncoated, small gauge solid core wire. Basically your via becomes another component for you to solder in. I did that a grand total of one time (maybe twice, on the same design) before I swore it off forever. Never thought that deeply about alternatives. Glad someone is!
LPKF sells conductive epoxy for the purpose. @timonsku.zip on BlueSky mentioned that he runs a continuous strand of wire through a bunch of holes all at once, solder, and then cut off the excess. Great idea. @timonsku.zip on Bluesky
Yeah, you can do all those things (wire vias, silkscreen via toner xfer, even solder mask, …) in your lab/home but it is a lot of effort to avoid a bit of time. I’ve done all that stuff in the past but it seems like a detour from the actual product.
I could see doing simple single sided quick test boards to try out a new chip or try some things for inclusion in a full board. But ultimately, I’m always going to want a professionally made PCB as the end product, even for a one-off board. I’d rather invest my time in getting to that result. I have no shortage of tasks crying for my attention.
I think the neat thing about the fiber laser is how fast and “no touch” it is.
I have an Othermill which has saved my behind a number of times, and is great also for making little adapters on demand. But it’s usually an hour or two to turn out a board with a fair bit of baby sitting involved when CNC milling.
Being able to drop a board down without needing very secure taping and not having to touch the tooling is fantastic.
I’d rather send my stuff out, too, but in a pinch, having the capability to do an immediate turn is great. Especially when you want to test something out going into a weekend and you’d rather have the answer sooner.
I briefly worked in Boulder, Colorado, within driving distance of Advanced Circuits – that was great - I would order a barebone board on the afternoon of day 0, and can pick it up at their loading dock in the evening of day 1 (and would have dinner nearby because there was decent Korean BBQ in Aurora, CO). I wish I had a similar shop where I am now…
I’ve had some success using uninsulated wiring ferrules as mounting locations, and they could work as vias as well. They poke out, of course, but that is actually an advantage when used a mounting locations for wires and heavier components that sometimes result in lifted pads on FR1.
