Making a Gen7-2.0 PCB on a 3-D Printer

Using Inkscape, Blender & Cura I was able to create the G-code needed to
make a Gen7 2.0 circuit trace mask for a copper cladded board. I still need to clean up the STL file
a little bit but it does show a lot of promise. If anyone is interested I'd be more
than happy to post the STL file once its all cleaned up.


Prusa 2 making a etch mask

How is your plan to make a PCB from it? Print on the copper side and then edge it? Or use UV transmitting method with photo positive PCB?

Anyway it requires a very good 1st layer. Cudos, if your printer is able to do this accurately
I wouldn't want to try cleaning up such a fragile structure

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/06/2017 04:58AM by o_lampe.

... in my beginnings I've made my PCB's by coating bare copperclad boards with (green) photosensitive lacquer and then exposed/cured it with self-made "photo-pens" on a pen-plotter.

After the vendors of the green-sensitive materials changed to UV (and UV-LED's weren't common then), I changed to milling and laser-etching.

Most PCB-softwares have exporters for the lines in either HPGL-, Gerber- or DXF-format, what's meant for drawing with plotters or milling with CNC-mills or importing into software to laser-print or such.

Beside CNC-milling or laser-engravin the data with common CAM softwares I'm using a modified Pronterface and importers/converters for common vector formats, so no need to generate the lines out from a STL-file.

Maybe you should check the options to export the vector lines as DXF or direct G-code?

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Viktor
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Aufruf zum Projekt "Müll-freie Meere" - [reprap.org] -- Deutsche Facebook-Gruppe - [www.facebook.com]

Call for the project "garbage-free seas" - [reprap.org]

Just an idea to overcome the 1st layer problem: Mirror the print, so you can use the top layer on the copper side. Clamp both together and edge it.
Maybe print the last layer(s) in TPU/TPE and get a soft sealing surface....

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/06/2017 05:57AM by o_lampe.

If you want to make a housing for the Gen7, how awesome would it look to have the PCB traces on it?!