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curvy leds + fab

A project log for The Circuit Graver

Carve PCBs at home using a machine you build!

zakqwyzakqwy 10/30/2024 at 22:000 Comments

I used Inkscape to make the LEDs a bit more interesting:

After a quick air-cutting fab test, I de-escalated the LED count to save Y-axis travel:

[yup, screenshots of inkscape]

The red dots are shorts to ground or adjacent pads after fab. Not bad! The first round was weird, though; I kept the lower LED cluster grouped and saved as an Inkscape SVG (as opposed to "plain"), and the grouped bits didn't rotate properly:

Mmm such fascinating gremlins. I un-grouped and re-saved and ended up with a good board which beeped out after fixing the aforementioned shorts (fewer than last time!):Oof, the resistor packs are particularly gruesome. 4-way crosses aren't great. Some toolpathing cleverness for narrow trace areas is really going to be necessary at some point; crossing trenches can pull pretty severe chunks out around narrow feature areas. I think this is solvable but will take a bit of experimentation.

Now for the header pads on the reverse side! Since the badge design is released, I was able to adjust the angle so in the upper left plug the square would sit upright (roughly 33 degrees):

Fab was perfect, beeped out on the first try! I wasn't shy with the pressure wheel since this is such a simple design, but it was nice to have one require no work either way. I might be able to back off the overcut a bit, in fact:

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