Interesting collection joeqsmith.
The V groove cutters I bought are carbide. They look like this. Just one cutting edge on the bit. You can see some of the hand-carved lines I made in the corner of the pcb. I don't remember what the isolation gap settings I used on this pcb; it is pretty generous, seeing as no soldermask. Anyhow, I could easily match it by hand, under good lighting, say under a microscope. (You can't really tell in the pic, but those lines all have a very clear isolation, visually.) The small ball cutters with the multiple facets work great, too, but I find they dull very quickly. This bit was still sharp enough to poke a hole through my finger when I put it away.
Has anyone tried the guide from the Dremel 566 Wall Tile Cutting Kit, to provide router-like depth control for cutting isolation gaps in bare copper PCBs without digging into the underlying laminate excessively?
For the sake of science, I just free-handed this on my router table. Obviously I couldn't see what I was doing, but as you can see it was pretty smooth. I guess these bits are somewhat limited to depth of cut. Going even halfway through the FR-4, things get really dicey. Or maybe it's the material, copper being easy to machine. I think most of the time you rework a pcb, it's going to be populated, though. So I wonder how often you are going to get to use a router guide.
I had a friend who had a cutter that was more like a dental office tool.
Well, I have yet to use a Dremel tool with as little runout as my proxxons. I have indeed used a proxxon tool to grind on a tooth, before. Smooth!
I have a couple Dremels and a couple proxxons. With my Dremels, I can manage an endmill on plastic by hand, but not wood. With the proxxons, I can manage wood, no problem.
Welcome to the dark side of PCB cutting with a pointed tip.
If I had known it was this easy, I would have used it the other day. I broke out the sharpie to make a quick and dirty board for wiring up a multi cell battery... and it turned out pretty horrible. I guess I have the wrong kind of pens. This would have done a much neater job.