Advanced PCB drilling machine

• Main Authors: Azarias, Janice Loren C., Hong, Rui Dong L., Lim, Arnold Berlin L., Sy, Vivian L., Wong, Anthony C.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2001
• Subjects: Printed circuits > Design and construction
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_bachelors/14539
• Institution: De La Salle University

The thesis Advanced PCB Drilling Machine describes the development of an automated printed circuit board (PCB) drilling machine through the incorporation of computer interface with electronic and mechanical devices. Numerical control (NC) drill text files generated by PCB design software Protel are interpreted by the software program developed in Visual C++ to determine the absolute coordinates of the holes to be drilled. Positioning of the x-y table, as well as the z-axis, of the machine is done through the use of LM629N-6 chips, which are precision motion controllers that use proportional integral derivative (PID) control to control the speed and direction of the direct current (DC) motors of each axis. Optical encoders provide the feedback signals used by LM629N-6 to control the positioning of the axes. The drive system of the machine is accomplished through the use of lead screws on each axis. Accuracy and speed are the two main concerns of the thesis. Experiments carried out on the thesis showed that the desired accuracy of +0.01 was maintained by the machine with reduced errors from previous theses. Improvement of the linear speed, which is one of the main objectives of the thesis, was also achieved with a maximum speed of 6 /second. Sample PCB's were drilled using circuits designed in Protel and the results of the drilled holes satisfactorily aligned those of the sample circuits printed on transparencies. A resolution of 0.167/step was also obtained by the Advanced PCB Drilling Machine, which is 0.733 smaller than the minimum allowable increments of previous theses.