your subject title was really asking for it. then you profess surprise when people challenge your claim.
if it were a whole lot less clickbaity and less pretentious you wouldn't be getting hammered like you are.
What claim did I make that people are challenging? The only thing some people are challenging is market size, something that I've made no claims about. Also, I've professed no surprise.
The title is "Prometheus for Rapid Prototyping - Forget Everything You Know About PCB Milling". If you'd like to know why I said, "Forget Everything You Know About PCB Milling", it's because some people have an impression that PCB milling has to be extremely slow and only produce boards for through-hole components or large SOICs. They don't realize that you can support .4 mm-pitch components with the right equipment. They might get this impression from the hobby machines on YouTube or from trying it out on a general-purpose mill with high spindle runout. On the other hand, others who are familiar with professional machines like LPKF, T-tech, Mits, etc.
do know that you can get good results but they also know that the machines cost many thousands of dollars.
For example,
if you were to search for a machine that can do 4-mil trace/5-mil space or better, you might come up with something like this:
https://web-beta.archive.org/web/20160325161141/http://www.lpkfusa.com/Store/pages/ProductDetail.aspx?cat=51&cid=51&pid=364Notice the $8,500 price. I had to use archive.org because it appears that you now have to call for a quote.
I'm providing 4/5 trace/space for a fraction of that price - $2,300.Relevant Prometheus specs to also consider when you compare machines are:
Spindle Speed: 50,000 RPM
Max X/Y Speed: 3,800 mm/min (150 IPM)
Spindle Runout (TIR): < 2.5 microns, 10 mm below the spindle bearing (static)
In summary, PCB milling no longer has to be
as slow or
as expensive anymore. I won't debate whether it's still
too slow or
too expensive for any given purpose; that is subjective. It's not for everybody.