Saturday, February 21, 2015

How to Make PCBs with Eagle, FlatCAM, and Roland MDX-40A

I live near a FabLab here in the Philippines. Like most FabLabs, this FabLab also has small milling machine, specifically, the Roland MDX-40A. Although the MDX-40A can mill 3D figures, the machine is mostly used to create PCBs using isolation routing. I will talk about PCB milling in this post.

Roland MDX-40A

The first method that I learned in creating PCBs using the MDX-40A was using the Fab Modules and two computers running two different operating systems. I produced a couple of PCBs using the said method. However, I soon found myself struggling with the process and left the machine to be dormant for a few months.

Recently, I felt the urge to once again check on the MDX-40A. This time, I waded through Google's search results for additional info on the MDX-40A. I found out from here that the MDX-40A can read NC Code. I also wanted to use a *free* toolchain to produce my NC code from Gerber and Excellon files and so I searched for free alternatives and then came across FlatCAM (http://www.flatcam.org). I starting using FlatCAM and found it to be intuitive and quite easy to use, so much so that I made a tutorial (download link below). Thanks to FabLab Bohol for letting me tinker and use the machine. I hope you enjoy it!