It is always interesting the research of different methods to quickly realize a pcb. Visolate represents an interesting tool to obtain the necessary gcode starting from a rs274x (gerber) file.
As an example we have realized a simple pcb, a 5v regulator, using eagle cad:
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Visolate allows to obtain very quickly the gcode file necessary to the milling process of a pcb. It is a java program, therefore it is not important which operative system we are going to use (we have used linux 11.04, for instance). Naturally java must be installed. The software can be downloaded HERE.
the command: java -jar visolate-3.0.1.jar will start the application (we checked under linux ubuntu 13.04)
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Immediately after we can upload the file gerber we have exported using the cam provided with eagle cad. The file has been mirrorized (flipped) and the gcode toolpaths obtained. The result is good nough but it is not different from the gcode toolpaths we could have obtained using the traditional internal scripts of eagle. |
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Slightly different is the situation if we prefer to realize a voronoi toolpath. The voronoi diagram is a mathematical algorithm to obtain different areas related to correspondent points, but this is not important for us. What is really important is the fact that the traces of our pcb are created using areas, not traces. This fact is important where, for instance, we need to realize a pcb where high currents are involved.
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