Design and Development of Cost-effective PCB Prototyping Machine

The demand for CNC machines in educational institutions and industries is rapidly increasing. This paper presents an affordable model of a CNC machine that can engrave the circuit's layout on copper plates. Our emphasis on designing this machine is to model a low cost and robust model of CNC machine for PCB prototyping. This CNC machine is a combination of electro-mechanical design and control circuitry. Because of its user-friendly design, it provides great ease in engraving operation. First, a layout is designed by using a standard PCB designing software. Then the finalized layout is converted into G-code. This code contains axis information which is translated by the firmware of the microcontroller. According to the axis information, the controller drives the mechanical assembly with the accuracy of micrometers. The result shows better performance on various circuits and proved to be a cost-effective tool for academia and industry.