LPKF

[djsb]

Thanks for the information. We have just got a new S103 and I'll have a good read of your documentation. More questions later.

[s103_protomat]

Just did another test board using a 2oz core. Came up with one short in the 8mil isolation and 3 shorts in the 10 mil isolation. My guess as to what happened is the extra air gap in the rubout area from the thicker copper did not get filled in with prepreg. Alternatively the thicker coppers different thermal properties could have caused uneven heating (LPKF has mentioned this to me before on the phone). I pulled the panel apart and found the typical tiny copper specks from plating shorting to the plane. The holes that leaked are all different sizes and randomly placed across the board. 

[s103_protomat]

here is an example of the leakage issue we have discovered. I have a bunch more pictures if you want them but they all look very similar to this. Also included is a test board with shorted holes circled. top left is 8mil internal clearance middle is 10mil clearance. bottom left is 15 mil clearance. top right is 15mil and bottom right is 8mil

[Icchan]

Glad I found this... hope you'll update and improve these documents or even release them as open source so the community can refine them together.

We have tried to do quick turn prototyping using these machines and franlky I hate it.

The software is full of bugs and even if you do the same procedure of importing 3 designs one by one to the boardmaster, one of them is going to fail because circuitcam decides to do something weird and route randomly straight through your board with 2mm routing tool without giving any indication as to why or how... but other 3 are fine on the same panel fromt he same source and same gerber export process... what the hell?

I wonder if it's a combination of having older software version or having incompatible windows installation or somethign other...

but this is so finnicky and quite expensive so "saving time" is questionable and through that "saving money" is questionable too.

But when it sometimes works it's fast... the chemical through hole plating is awful process though and fiddling with transparencies is iffy...

And dealing around the limits of manufacture tolerances is limiting, but hey... if it works, it's fast.

[s103_protomat]

Glad I found this... hope you'll update and improve these documents or even release them as open source so the community can refine them together.

We have tried to do quick turn prototyping using these machines and franlky I hate it.

The software is full of bugs and even if you do the same procedure of importing 3 designs one by one to the boardmaster, one of them is going to fail because circuitcam decides to do something weird and route randomly straight through your board with 2mm routing tool without giving any indication as to why or how... but other 3 are fine on the same panel fromt he same source and same gerber export process... what the hell?

I wonder if it's a combination of having older software version or having incompatible windows installation or somethign other...

but this is so finnicky and quite expensive so "saving time" is questionable and through that "saving money" is questionable too.

But when it sometimes works it's fast... the chemical through hole plating is awful process though and fiddling with transparencies is iffy...

And dealing around the limits of manufacture tolerances is limiting, but hey... if it works, it's fast.

Sorry just seeing this, It seems like you need to adjust your machine settings to pick up the tool higher when traveling between features. If you have not done this yet it is easy.

In circuitPro go to extras > options > General > User level and change it to service (password is LPKF)

close out of that window and enter machining>Service>Machine settings

In machine settings navigate to height level parameters and change your FreeDriveHeight_mm to around 6 (i think 2 or 3 is default)

Let me know if this helps 

[mrpackethead]

i spent an awful lot of time and money on an LPKF S63 and honestly it was one of the worst decisions i made in a long time.    Nothing worked the way it was supposed to.  The software was buggy.   The support from the Australian Distributor was nothing short of digusting. The Support from LPKF in Geramny was slihglty better, but still it dis'tn help. After 6 months of trying and working very hard with the machine ( and it was returned to them for "repairs" ) the machine was returned and they refunded most of my money.   though i'd wasted nearly 5000 in materials and tools, and 100's of hours.

If there is any good from this exercise, its that i can tell you to avoid it.

[mrpackethead]

i spent an awful lot of time and money on an LPKF S63 and honestly it was one of the worst decisions i made in a long time.    Nothing worked the way it was supposed to.  The software was buggy.   The support from the Australian Distributor was nothing short of digusting. The Support from LPKF in Geramny was slihglty better, but still it dis'tn help. After 6 months of trying and working very hard with the machine ( and it was returned to them for "repairs" ) the machine was returned and they refunded most of my money.   though i'd wasted nearly 5000 in materials and tools, and 100's of hours.

If there is any good from this exercise, its that i can tell you to avoid it.

did you move to a better machine? or it is back to etching?

I've got back to getting boards made professionally by a rapid turn board service.  4 layer pcbs typically are with me 4 days after sending gerbers. And they work, and i dont' need to worry about it, and its way cheaper, and i can do things that you wont' do with a machine...

[calvinlove0]

Just wanted to weigh in on this post. I read this a couple years ago noticing that it was about an older LPKF machine. I decided to take a chance on the newer LPKF S104. We're currently having continuous problems with it. The hardware is definitely superb but the software is far too glitchy. The only worse than the software is the support team. They are completely useless and after 5 months over going back and forth with them we still can't mill PCBs.

To anyone who has the thought "well that was way back in 2014"...no its still a very real problem today. Don't waste you money on these guys.

[Protomat S104]

Hy I am working in circuitpro / Protomat S104 I am facing some issue  hope you understand and guide me
Head adjustment issue

• It took so much time to adjust the drill when Machine going is to tool adjustment . After that it show some error