Author Topic: Colinbus PCB BOX review - very short  (Read 39835 times)

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Offline xcellency

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Re: Colinbus PCB BOX review - very short
« Reply #25 on: March 15, 2012, 02:04:19 pm »
Hi hacklordsniper,

Same questions as nick7 did, but its now 2012 :D
It is still working as it should? 

There is a new version i saw at the website 60.000rpm and automatic tool changing.
Is it worth it to buy it to make proffesional prints?

btw your a funny guy, i have read this topic with pleasure.
 

Offline T4P

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Re: Colinbus PCB BOX review - very short
« Reply #26 on: March 15, 2012, 05:02:12 pm »
sniper , you sir are a legend .
Thanks for speaking out your rant after a few months on what seems like a madly expensive but built cheaply by a scam company made out of not more than mad monkeys .
 

Offline Hypernova

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Re: Colinbus PCB BOX review - very short
« Reply #27 on: March 16, 2012, 03:25:43 am »
It's quite a trip from the start of the thread to where we end up with now. Certainly very sad to see the initial excitement turn to utter disappointment.
 

Offline azurewraith

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Re: Colinbus PCB BOX review - very short
« Reply #28 on: May 11, 2012, 02:50:57 pm »
Thank you for the stunning conclusion.  I was tempted by the PCB BOX, and it is the top Google search hit for "pcb prototyper".

Has anyone found a machine that is designed well, priced decently, and mills PCB boards?
 

Offline xcellency

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Re: Colinbus PCB BOX review - very short
« Reply #29 on: May 11, 2012, 03:33:58 pm »
Actualy yes, but did not bough it yet. Some friends had good experience with it.
But i can cut only pcb's plastics and aluminum.

I found a good one for metal too but more expensive but much more cheaper then this prototyper.
The motor should be replaced and steppers to servo's, then it would be the perfect stable machine.
It has to come out of china from a country mate who is living there, and he arrange all.

I post link later..
 

Offline free_electron

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Re: Colinbus PCB BOX review - very short
« Reply #30 on: May 11, 2012, 04:27:19 pm »
they all stink ... i had a superduper LPKF95S with all the gizmos ( multipress , plating installation , the whole shebang.. ) NEVER made a working board with it. NEVER !
Machine locks up , machine crashes , software glitches, communication failures , machine runs into its own toolhandler and bends the snot out of it.

Sure it works , if your boards are 2 inch x 2 inch and you only do contour engraving , and you use their material ( with the double peel-off copper ) and you only do engraving with swuare tipped bits.
as soon as you start playing with depth control to get finer lines ( like 6 mil and 4 mil ) all bets are off...
and as or 'rubout ' .... forget that one totally.
As for a multilayer ... you are going to spend 2 days engraving ( provided nothing screws up ) half a day plating and half a day plus a full night in the oven.. by the time you are done 3 full days have passed.  i can get 4 layer boards professionally made , around the corner ( there are at least 4 PCB fabs in a 5 mile radius from where i am : APCT , Sierra , Hunter , Gorilla ) in 8 hours .... since these fabs run 24/7 i send of my gerber in the afternoon , go home , have a barbeque , enjoy the pool , watch some tv , sleep , have breakfast and when i walk in around 9aM my boards are waiting for me ... ZERO downtime , zero effort.

PCB engravers are garbage.

If you are after cheap : with all the chinese boardhouses you can get hundreds of projects run over there for the cost of the bare machine alone ...
Professional Electron Wrangler.
Any comments, or points of view expressed, are my own and not endorsed , induced or compensated by my employer(s).
 


Online nctnico

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Re: Colinbus PCB BOX review - very short
« Reply #32 on: May 13, 2012, 11:57:50 pm »
Its a real shame people get ripped off for 4000 euro!

Maybe we could start a poll: Do you know somebody who actually uses a PCB engraving machine succesfully? I have to answer 'no' to that question. OTOH FeCl, etch resistant ink pens and photoresist board have served me well for over 25 years. Besides having boards made has become very cheap. I always order from Eurocircuits. Having a board made by them costs at least € 110. For small PCBs I let them make a panel so instead of 2 (or 3) PCBs I get 10 to 30 PCBs for the same price!
There are small lies, big lies and then there is what is on the screen of your oscilloscope.
 

Offline updatelee

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Re: Colinbus PCB BOX review - very short
« Reply #33 on: May 23, 2012, 03:30:00 am »
I make simple PCB's with my taig, cost me $2k usd with controller from deepgrove1

everything is manual, its a regular cnc mini-mill not specifically designed for pcb's. I use diptrace to create the gerber's then use cambam to the pcb isolate and produce gcode, I then use linuxcnc to control the gecko driver and run the mill.

I havent tried anything incredibly tight, maybe I'll try just for fun sometime this week. I basically just adjust the machine's z till a piece of paper between the bit and pcb is just touching. Then run the gcode, press stop, lower 0.1mm, run gcode, etc etc till I get the depth I want. Usually just takes two or three adjusts, better to go slow though then too deep, lol cant put copper back on the board if I go too deep off the hop hehe.

It doesnt come with any limit switch's but Ive ordered some switch's and am going to remedy that.

The machine itself is great, ive done some simple sheet metal jobs with it to make some custom enclosures and a few pcb's. Its very capable and well built. No software at all is included, thats upto you.

Chris Lee
 

Online nctnico

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Re: Colinbus PCB BOX review - very short
« Reply #34 on: May 23, 2012, 06:51:25 am »
These Taig machines look like they can get the job done! They are exactly like the mills you find in many metal workshops. I'd try and add some absolute encoders to the machine though. This way you can always tell where its at so missings steps are not a problem.

It would be nice if you can post some pictures of your results.
« Last Edit: May 23, 2012, 07:14:07 am by nctnico »
There are small lies, big lies and then there is what is on the screen of your oscilloscope.
 

Offline agassichan

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Re: Colinbus PCB BOX review - very short
« Reply #35 on: December 12, 2012, 02:09:14 pm »
I've recently ordered a PCBBOX thinking it would be a great deal.

I've never opened the box, as long as the machine arrived 2 months later than the expected delivery date. They fooled me every week after the delivery date, with new excuses.

One month after the expected delivery date they refused a full refund.

Don't know the machine, but really bad guys managing!

 

Offline peter.mitchell

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Re: Colinbus PCB BOX review - very short
« Reply #36 on: December 12, 2012, 03:27:09 pm »
Wow, initially, this thread looked like it was going to be a little bit positive, now though i am  very sad after reading :(
 

Offline hacklordsniperTopic starter

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Oh, the joy of sending various electronics to silicon heaven
 


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