Auto Circuit Board Maker

There are multiple domains within degree program where Engineering students do their specialization. Starting from the very beginning of Engineering degree, students are encouraged for semester projects of various technical courses which need proper engin

Project Title

Auto Circuit Board Maker

Project Area of Specialization

3D/4D Printing

Project Summary

There are multiple domains within degree program where Engineering students do their specialization. Starting from the very beginning of Engineering degree, students are encouraged for semester projects of various technical courses which need proper engineering knowledge, such engineering projects need complete insight into the designing procedures from scratch to completion. There is no doubt about students’ knowledge regarding any practical concept but despite having that knowledge, engineering student face certain problems while designing a particular hardware.The designing procedures include ironing, etching, drilling and soldering the components. Following these old ways is not always fruitful because most of the time, students end up messing their projects due to ironing blunders, etching mishaps and drilling mistakes. Hence, there is need of some Engineering Learning tool (ELT) to automate the old fashioned ways of hardware designing. Auto circuit board maker is a computer numeric control (CNC) PCB machine which will serve the purpose of auto milling and auto drilling of the provided layout which omits the ironing and etching processes in one process called auto milling. The user will have to design the gerber file (layout) of the schematic on the software and after fetching that file to the machine, the machine will automatically draw that layout on the PCB board and will also drill the holes. The time consumption and stress of engineering students will be reduced to a considerable amount and it will also help in understanding and visualizing the basic knowledge.

Project Objectives

The processes required to be followed during a semester project are hard enough already and the pain of starting over from the scratch is unbearable so, in order to reduce these issues, this machine would cater for the 3 mentioned processes which are:

• Ironing

• Etching

• Drilling

Soldering is also a critical part of PCB designing but this machine is omitting this part in order to reduce the complexity of the machine and soldering is solely the skill of a person and it must be done by human beings so that they can polish their soldering skills and they do not have to rely upon some machine to do all the work. The objective of making this tool is to do the 3 processes of project designing on PCB which are ironing, etching and drilling holes. 

Project Implementation Method

We implement our project in such design that we made thee axis for movement of our machine:

• X-axis
• Y-axis
• Z-axis

 The Head or Spindle of Auto Circuit Board Maker is on z-axis which move in up-down direction. The bed on which the the printed circuit board (PCB) will be placed is not movable. We connect this machine to the computer software named as GRBL for easy use of this machine. With this software interface we can control this machine. 

Benefits of the Project

The benefits of the project varies from industrial to non-industrial level. On industrial level, the advantages and benefits of this machine are immense. With the help of this machine, need of labor will decrease and work will done by the machine. On non-industrial level too, this machine proved to be beneficial for human life. Most of these automated machines are made in educational institutions where students decide to do something beneficial to others so they can shape their hardships into something easy and luxurious. Usually the machines designed for non-industrial purposes are not that much costly as compared to the industrial machines but the rate of production in both cases do not vary a lot. These are either Engineering Learning Tools or the automated machines used by different small firms. In case of ELT (Engineering Learning Tool), they serve the purpose of advanced learning and develop the environment of fast-learning.

Technical Details of Final Deliverable

The final product is of metallic structure made of aluminium frame and x and y axes are also made up of aluminium but z axes is actually an actuator which contains ball screw instead of lead screw present in x and y axes. The user first designs the layout of desired schematic and then that layout is converted into gerber file which is then fetched to GRBL software installed in PC which helps in interface of CNC shield with arduino uno and then the PCB board is placed on the frame for drilling and milling. Then, the drill automatically drills or mills the layout according to the file provided to GRBL.

Final Deliverable of the Project

HW/SW integrated system

Type of Industry

Education , Manufacturing , Others

Technologies

3D/4D Printing, Others, Clean Tech

Sustainable Development Goals

Quality Education, Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure

Required Resources

If you need this project, please contact me on contact@adikhanofficial.com