The board is preheated to the point that it will melt the solder as soon as
it touches the board. The solder is spooled out by a head on the cnc machine
with a "wire" feed system; basically a set of driven rollers that feeds the
solder when a trace or pad is being drawn. It is triggered by a "pen down"
and turned off by "pen up".

-----Original Message-----
From: piclist-bounces@mit.edu [mailto:piclist-bounces@mit.edu] On Behalf Of
Bryan Bishop
Sent: Thursday, November 15, 2007 18:51
To: Microcontroller discussion list - Public.
Subject: Re: [EE] Idea: Printing SMT Circuit Boards with solder bleed
tracesbetween tiny copper islands.

On Thursday 15 November 2007 13:53, James Newton wrote:
> the pads and traces. This could easily be automated with a CNC mill
> and a solder feeding head.

How would a CNC mill lay down solder? I have only recently learned about 
CNC lathes and so on, and the basics of their design, but this eludes 
me- aren't these more about cutting metal than soldering? How fine 
would the soldering iron tips have to be, how fast could these operate, 
etc.?



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