QuoteYou didn't miss it in the video - there is no pressure foot because Prometheus doesn't need one! Instead, ProCAM runs a ~90 second probing cycle before milling begins, where the tip of the tool moves down until it makes electrical contact with the copper-clad surface. When it does, it records the height with 1.25-micron resolution. After probing a grid of points, ProCAM forms a surface map behind the scenes and automatically tells Prometheus how to adjust the Z axis on the fly to keep a consistent milling depth. Basically, it follows the peaks and valleys of the board on its own. This has proven to produce fantastic results and users don't have to worry about pressure foot limitations or the pad wearing or snagging or anything like that. It just works.
Sounds impressive. How well will that work with very thin PCB material that tends to bow/flex upwards? eg 0.02" Rogers 4003C or thinner?
The thinnest RF PCB material I've milled on my old T-Tech machine was two sided copper with a 60 micron thick dielectric. It was like copper paper. However, that is very much a rare extreme
This machine is a total nonsense, making pcb's with UV Light is very easier, faster, better results and cheap.
It's really funny you mention that - I have Rogers 4003C arriving in the mail later today. It's only .012" and .008" thick. I'm testing it out for a large aerospace customer that has pre-ordered Prometheus. Thicker Rogers 4350 worked out great so far. We shall see...
I still can't fathom why the experts on here can't accept that there is a market for these machines and there has been for decades.
businesses and universities serious about pcb prototyping will buy something with a commercial onsite support contract. if they are so dependent on 1hr turnaround, then they will want a support engineer on site to fix it NOW.
UV light boxes and PCB mills have been around for decades and both are valid ways to make a prototype PCB. If PCB mills are 'total nonsense' compared to UV light then how come T-Tech and LPKF have been making and selling these expensive machines for decades now? Maybe someone should have told them 30 years ago that their business plan for the next 30 years was 'total nonsense' and they should be selling cheap UV light boxes instead
I still can't fathom why the experts on here can't accept that there is a market for these machines and there has been for decades. It may well be a shrinking market because of the low cost of buying cheap FR4 boards from fab houses but these machines are often popular with companies that do RF design on exotic laminates. Plus there is the value of being able to make several iterations of a design the same day.
UV light boxes and smelly/staining chemicals aren't for everyone. At my place of work we stopped using the UV method about 25 years ago in favour of a T-Tech mill. No more complaints of chemical smells wafting through the labs on hot days, no more complaints of drips and stains left by clumsy or lazy engineers, much easier production of (accurate) 2 sided boards, much easier to drill, much easier and faster to produce PCBs with accurate custom outlines and with accurate custom cutout areas. No more sounds of engineers furiously filing the edges of PCBs to make them fit or drilling and filing out apertures within the PCB
But these point are extremely focussed on RF prototyping which is a tiny niche.
I understand you want to make your product look like it's a solution to everyone's problem but most just don't have the problem you are trying to provide a solution for.
QuoteThis machine is a total nonsense, making pcb's with UV Light is very easier, faster, better results and cheap.
UV light boxes and PCB mills have been around for decades and both are valid ways to make a prototype PCB. If PCB mills are 'total nonsense' compared to UV light then how come T-Tech and LPKF have been making and selling these expensive machines for decades now? Maybe someone should have told them 30 years ago that their business plan for the next 30 years was 'total nonsense' and they should be selling cheap UV light boxes instead
I still can't fathom why the experts on here can't accept that there is a market for these machines and there has been for decades.
It may well be a shrinking market because of the low cost of buying cheap FR4 boards from fab houses but these machines are often popular with companies that do RF design on exotic laminates. Plus there is the value of being able to make several iterations of a design the same day.
UV light boxes and smelly/staining chemicals aren't for everyone. At my place of work we stopped using the UV method about 25 years ago in favour of a T-Tech mill. No more complaints of chemical smells wafting through the labs on hot days,
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.
The only pretentious people I see are the ones pretending to be experts on why milling is a waste of time. This seems to happen a lot when PCB milling gets discussed.
Clearly a lot of effort has gone into designing and building this piece of equipment although I get the impression that it hasn't been fully trialled yet for various PCB types and PCB designs.
and so is the use of the oil.
We replaced it with an LPKF machine and only a trained operator is allowed to use it. So despite being used many times a week for maybe 15 years it is still running. It has needed a few repairs in this time but nothing too serious or costly.
I think the manual use of the vacuum isn't attractive in its present guise. But the price looks really low.
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.
Im not talking from some made up theortical position. I did spend a large sum of money, and invested a lot of time into PCB Milliung after being suckered into the hype of it. Talking from real experince, i can tell you that it not only wastes time, but also ends up costing money. It encourages poor design and poor engineering, because people start thinking that they can just spin another board and solv things if it doe'snt work.. If theres a bit of pain in having to wait 2-3 days for a pcb, then that is good, bcause people are much much more careful. And as they guy who has to pay the bills, i'm actually much more interested in the bottom line.
The only pretentious people I see are the ones pretending to be experts on why milling is a waste of time. This seems to happen a lot when PCB milling gets discussed. Clearly a lot of effort has gone into designing and building this piece of equipment although I get the impression that it hasn't been fully trialled yet for various PCB types and PCB designs.
For me, the footless design that uses optical tracking is interesting and so is the use of the oil. However, I would have some doubts how well the oil copes when doing a fairly thorough rubout and I think the manual use of the vacuum isn't attractive in its present guise. But the price looks really low.
How long it lasts before wear becomes an issue would be one concern but I guess this is offset by the low price. My milling machine has lasted over 20 years because I have used it with care and skill and I've serviced it regularly. I've never needed to use any of the parts in the service kit that came with it apart from changing the tiny grub screw for the tool chuck at recommended intervals. The identical model at my place of work only lasted a few years because we made the mistake of letting any engineer play with it. So it inevitably lost performance and was eventually damaged so much the wear and 'lack of true' in the spindle became so ridiculous it couldn't mill anything beyond a basic outline for a tool.
We replaced it with an LPKF machine and only a trained operator is allowed to use it. So despite being used many times a week for maybe 15 years it is still running. It has needed a few repairs in this time but nothing too serious or costly.
that's not backlash. that's skipped steps. backlash does not accumulate, it is a fixed error.This is not strictly true - the backlash itself doesn't accumulate (except over time with wear) but you can show that backlash can contribute to a cumulative error with the following pseudo code:
FR4 dust is abrasive, and needs to be kept away from bearings, so local vacuum extraction is pretty much essential if you want it to last a decent amount of time.
My impression is that just need to hire better, more committed engineers
rather than blame the fact that you/they can't make the correct decisions on what tools will or won't work for your business.
Telling the rest of the world that milling is a waste of time because it promotes laziness in your engineers doesn't make me think that the problem is with having a fast PCB turnaround.
It sounds to me like you are spinning a positive (fast turnaround) into a negative/excuse because you have lazy engineers working for you?
What claim did I make that people are challenging?
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.
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.
Out of curiosity, did you get that damaged spindle at work replaced? If so, do you remember how much it cost?
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.
Could you tell us who it is for and what use-case it provides a positive return? I cant' see it, but i'm big enough to know that i dont' know everything and if there is a use-case that might work for me, id love to know what it is.
Sure. I don't know if there's a use-case that works for you, but I think the best way I can answer the question of who it's for is by telling you who I've seen order one.
The largest business that has ordered is a private aerospace company that will use it for RF designs.
I don't really want to opine on general use-cases and positive returns because that's just asking for someone to jump on here and begin arguing, and I'm not really interested in that. On the other hand, actual sales can't be argued with.