are there any standard ways of creating odd shaped circuitboards aside from paying the pcb fab to do it for you? i will be having a prototype board created at barebones that will be cut down to a 4.2" diameter circle.
one method that might help is to make a perforated circle on the perimeter with the smallest drill size.
does anybody have any advice with this sort of thing?
thanks
You might be able to clamp it and use a hole saw, if you put a hole in the centre for the pilot drill. The hole saw will get blunt very quickly, of course. A tank cutter might work, as well.
Drilling holes as you suggest would work as well. It’s often done when cutting holes in metal.
Leon
thanks leon, i’ll keep those ideas in mind =)
I’m assuming that the PCB service you’re using only does rectangular PCBs with no internal cutouts (otherwise you could just draw the PCB outline in whatever shape you want it).
If there’s no restrictions on the number of drill holes, the idea of creating a ‘path’ of small drill holes seems to be a popular idea. I’ve done it in the past and used a Dremel to follow the ‘path’ with pretty good results. Some fine grit sandpaper should smooth down any nubs left over (if you get that picky).
turns out it wasn’t too bad just cutting them with a rotary tool. i had a copper trace outline as a guide (boards were from bare bones) used the little cutting disc to get the general shape and then sanded it to perfection with the sander tool (don’t know what they’re called). wore safety goggles and a mask of course, breathing fiberglass dust doesn’t sound like fun…
It doesn't taste good either. Neither does copper dust.wore safety goggles and a mask of course, breathing fiberglass dust doesn’t sound like fun