How to make circuits on the Modela milling

machine (cad.py)
Starting out
The modela is a nice little milling machine that cranks out most of the circuits you will need
for HTMAA. To be able to mill on it, you need to have FR1 which is a aer based coer
late. !ou cannot mill the fiberglass coer lates on the modela as it will break your bit and
the dust it will create is irritant. The FR1 is more tan than the fiberglass, which is more green,
and the FR1 is in stock in "1# in $%& inch and '%# inch ieces.
Where do you get the circuit
!ou can either use a b(w .ng with )"" resolution, which can be outut by eagle, or a .cad file
written for cad.y. *f you are using a .ng, the traces should be white and the background
should be black. +o not make the edges of your board too wide, as it will ,ust be more work
for the modela to mill those out. *f you need hel designing the board, check out the -./
design age.
This tutorial is mainly for using your own .ngs. The .cad files for the hello boards will
already have 0 min and ma% secified, you do not need to do that.
Fixing your board to the Modela
First make sure you have a sacrificial board underneath the board that you are milling. 1hen
you drill out the -./ you are making, you might go further than the actual thickness of the
board. Attach the sacrificial board and the board you are milling out to the modela with
double sided tae. Make sure the tae is not overlaing in any way as to not make the base
for your board uneven.
Settings
The 0 min is how far down the bit is going to travel. 1hen milling out the traces, this should
be set to 2".""). The 0 ma% is how high the bit will go u when traversing between the drilling
arts. This should be set to "."), or even ".1 if you think that your iece might be more
curved than usual. 1hen you are actually milling out the whole board you can set the 0 min to
2"."#).
The % and y min you can set deending on where you have laced the board you want to be
milling on. The units are in inches measured from the front left corner of the modela when
you are facing it.
Bits
icking a bit
To mill out the traces of a circuit board you will generally want to use a 1(#'th n2mill, but if
you have a articularly rough circuit you might be able to get away with 1(&$nd. .ontour your
board once with the tool diameter set to either 1(#' or 1(&$ and check if all the ieces are
milled correctly. *f 1(&$ is ok, contour as many times as you want with that, otherwise contour
with 1(#'th.
utting the bit in
1hen you ut the bit into the modela, you don3t have to tighten the set screws all that much.
4nug is fine. Then lower the bit as close as you can get to your coer late but without
touching it by keeing the down button ressed. *f you only ress the button once, the head
will move the bit down e%actly 5 mills.
6nce you have the bit as close to the coer, loosen the set screws again and ush the bit all
the way onto the coer. !ou should hear a small tick. Then tighten the screws again. !ou
have now set the 0 origin.
Sending the !ob "or the traces
7ow that your 0 origin is set and your ath is calculated, you can send the ,ob to the modela.
*f for some reason cad.y hung after calculating the toolath, you can still send the .rml file
that cad.y oututted by means of the following shell command8 cat #out.rml# $ #de%#ttyS&#
where out.rml is the ath to your file and (dev(tty4" is the ort that the modela is hooked u
to.
Sending the !ob to cut out the board
This is the same as sending a ,ob for the traces, only you have to use the 1(&$ bit, contour
once and set the 02min to 2"."#).
Fre'uently (sked )uestions
From: Agnes .hang3s general guides
How do * delete a !ob+
First, ause the modela immediately8 hit the View button on the machine to send the head
back to its resting osition. Hold down the Up and Down buttons simultaneously until the
view light is blinking. This indicates that the modela still has an unfinished ,ob in 9ueue: if
you try to shut off the modela now and turn it back on, it will resume the ,ob from where it
left off.
Then sto the comuter from sending the rest of the ,ob8 fire u the Terminal and tye in the
command
ps -aux | grep cat
this will show you the rocess *+s of all currently2running rocesses that have ;cat; in the
name <you can find out more about any =ni% command by googling, or through 1ikiedia,
such as the s command age here.> *n our case, cat is the rocess that sends rint ,obs to the
modela. ?ook for its rocess *+, and terminate the modela ,ob by entering
kill xxxx
where %%%% is the rocess number. *f you are successful in killing the ,ob <which might take a
second>, the @iew light on the modela should sto blinking, thereby indicating that the
machine is once again ready to receive a ,ob. *f you cannot kill the cat rocess, ,ust restart the
comuter.
How do * send an .rml "ile+
@ectori0ing in cad.y can sometimes take a while, and if you need to restart your ,ob because
of mechanical errors such as your iece getting loose or because the ower was reset mid2,ob,
you3ll want to save time by avoiding setting u twice in cad.y and simly sending the .rml
file directly to the modela. !ou can do this by firing u the Terminal and using the following
to establish the connection to the modela8
stty 9600 raw -echo crtscts -F /dev/ttyS0
=se the following to move the bit head so you can set the 02deth <the modela should be in
@iew mode>8
move [xpos] [ypos]
and finally use the following command to send your file
cat [il!ame]"rml # /dev/ttyS0
How do * secure my piece+
There are tricks to making sure that the material you are milling into never comes loose
during the ,ob8
1. make sure all surfaces are clean of dust and residue <vacuum it, wie it down, etc.>
$. double tae as much surface area as ossible
&. avoid utting too many finger rints in the tae
'. for e%tra heavy ieces, such as wa%, * found it helful to tae both the modela board
and the bottom of the wa%. /ecause tae2to2tae bond is obviously stronger, you can
really ress the tae into the surfaces and not worry as much about fingerrints.
). when cutting wa% or other thick material, make sure that you aren3t asking the modela
to cut deeer than the bit head can go, otherwise your bit will get so deely embedded
that the head will attemt to move your whole iece along with the bit. !our bit is
only a certain length, and deending on how you secured your bit, the modela might
not be able to cut deeer than 1($;.
#. to save time trying to ry off your now well2secured iece, leaving a iece of the tae
e%tending out beyond your iece will enable you to use that e%tended tae end as a
hand2hold to ull the iece u after the ,ob.
,he modela is not responding-+
*n our class we had two instances of this and the roblemAsolutions were8
1. shim for the cover interlock switch8 normally the modela has a clear safety cover over
the entire cutting bed, and the modela won3t run without the cover in lace. For
accessibility the Fab?ab modelas all don3t have a cover, we trick the modela into
thinking that it is there by wedging a shim into the switch that the modela uses to
detect whether or not the safety cover is in lace. 4ometimes this comes loose and the
modela will refuse to do what it3s told until the shim is roerly in lace.
$. invalid file name8 make sure your file name obeys uni% filename conventions and
constraints.