Design and Implementation of Low Cost Computer Numerical Control-Printed Circuit Boards Drilling Machine

Abstract

Electronic manufacturing sector uses Computer Numerical Control (CNC) machines for drilling holes on Printed Circuit Board (PCB). We designed the frame of our hardware in a way that achieved the aims of this paper. This paper aims at describing the design of a computer numeric control drilling machine. The said machine is designed with a view to keep the cost of the machine at minimum, hence making is suitable for use in small or medium scale industries. Along with the design of the mechanical components, the electronics and the software has also been designed. In this paper we used a C# language to create our software application, which allows the easy integration of input and output functions with any software that we develop in C#. Our CNC machine consists of components like driver, drill, three stepper motors, cables and microcontroller PIC16f877A to control the movement of the machine. The system consists of three main parts: a mechanical setup that can move in X, Y and Z directions, a driving circuitry and a software program that controls overall operation of the whole system. In this initial work, the system is developed such that it produces a trace line on a PCB board and drill holes on two pads at both end of the trace line. We show that our system successfully performs both of the above tasks.