I've seen a more expensive machine that mills the boards to look just
like they'd been etched... except that the traces are a little higher
(thicker vertically) when it's done... and the traces look a little
"squared off" is the best way I can describe it.

I have a little board that was made on this machine that a friend made
up that uses an 8-pin PIC one-shot with A/D to measure automotive
voltage and shut down my ham radio gear if the battery falls too low.
It also has a five minute "turn off the radios" timer that kills the
power to the radios via a hefty 30A relay after I get out of the
vehicle, and it monitors an accessory line from the key-switch in the
Jeep to put it in "turn them back on" mode.

It's kinda nice... I just get out of the vehicle knowing that the little
PIC board will turn everything off a few minutes later... and it waits a
little bit so you can get that last "talk to you later" in when you
arrive at your destination.

And if you're sitting there in the vehicle waiting for someone and want
to listen to the radio, you just turn the key-switch back on for 3
seconds and then off, and it "latches" on... but if you stay too long
like that and run the battery down, it kills everything... giving you a
large hint that you ought to start the vehicle and charge things back up
again.  (GRIN)  (One of the guys here found his alternator failed on the
highway, not by any indication from the vehicle itself, but when all his
radios dutifully turned off one night driving down the road... heh
heh...)

Useful little gadget.

(By the way, he wrote the code in PICBasic Pro, and no, I don't have
it... but it'd be pretty easy to do again...)

The machine made nice boards, but darn expensive machine I think... not
exactly hobbyist stuff.

(The person who gave me the board said the machine was owned by a local
electronics college at the time he had access to use it, so they can't
be super-expensive, but I'm sure they're not cheap...)

Nate

On Wed, 2002-11-06 at 21:44, Robert Rolf wrote:
> There are machines that do directly router a board. They don't remove
> all the copper, they just cut it free from the surrounding material.
> What you end up with is a board that from a distance looks like unetched
> but up close you can see the fine lines of missing copper that makes
> trace 'islands'.
>
> These machines are great for prototyping and one offs, and could probably
> be built by a home user from a solid flat bed plotter and a Dremel (r)
> cableflex tool. The routing software would be a pain though...
>
> Robert

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