Carbide 3D

Carbide Copper

Carbide Copper is a free tool from Carbide 3D to allow you to make a PCB with your CNC machine without any chemical etching.

It is currently available as a beta.

Quick Start

Material Setup

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NOTE: If Bottom Side Only is selected, Carbide Copper will mirror the signal layer

Copper Layer

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NOTE: You can also drag and drop your gerber file into the dotted window.

Drill Holes

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NOTE: You can also drag your drill file and drop it into the dotted window.

Board Routing

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Area Rubout

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Area Rubout removes copper from the board that isn’t part of the layout. This is typically required in high frequency or high voltage designs, where the extra copper can alter electrical features. It adds significant machining time and is not necessary for most applications, so we’ll leave Generate Area Rubout unchecked.

G-code Output

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Appendix

Built-in Cutters

The following cutters are built into Carbide Cutter:

Number Description Link
101 1/8" Ball Cutter Carbide 3D Store
102 1/8" Flat Cutter Carbide 3D Store
111 1/16" Ball Cutter Carbide 3D Store
112 1/16" Flat Cutter Carbide 3D Store
121 1/32" Ball Cutter Carbide 3D Store
122 1/32" Flat Cutter Carbide 3D Store
301 90 Degree V Cutter Carbide 3D Store
302 60 Degree V Cutter Carbide 3D Store
501 60 Degree V Cutter, .01" Ball Carbide 3D Store

Materials

Num Sides Description Link
1 2x3" Phenolic PCB Carbide 3D Store
2 2x3" Phenolic PCB Carbide 3D Store
1 4x6" Phenolic PCB Carbide 3D Store
2 4x6" Phenolic PCB Carbide 3D Store

Generating Gerber Files from Eagle

To make PCBs with Carbide Copper, we need to export gerber files in 247X format. For this guide we’ll use a single sided board with 10 mil traces and 10 mil isolation. We’ll export gerbers using the Carbide 3D CAM file.

If you do not have the Carbide 3D CAM file for eagle, you can get it here.

Gerber Files

Gerber files are the industry standard format for manufacturing PCBs. They’re a hybrid of machine control language and image that describes each layer of the board. To make things simple, the Carbide 3D CAM file only generates the gerbers we need for milling with the Nomad.

A CAM file tells the CAM processor which layers we want exported as gerbers, and how to create them. The Carbide 3D file creates gerbers for the top and bottom layers, the dimension layer (outline of the board), and a drill file. Note that neither the top or bottom gerbers are mirrored. The files generated by the Carbide 3D CAM file are:

Extension Gerber File
.TOP Top Copper
.BOT Bottom Copper
.OTL Outline
.TXT Drill
.gpi Photoplotter Info
.dri Drill Station Info

NOTE: The .gpi and .dri files are automatically generated by Eagle and can be ignored.

The CAM Processor

Open your board in Eagle, and load the CAM processor by clicking the CAM icon.

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The window that pops up should look like this:

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Go to the File menu, then go to Open > Job. Select the Carbide3D.cam file and click Process Job.

Once the gerbers are processed you’ll find the files in your project directory.