Quote Originally Posted by magicniner View Post
Always with the negative waves Moriarty! ;-)
Milling away the board from the back actually makes perfect sense if you read the bit about epoxy in his description of why heat isn't best for this!
A manual micro-mill like the Proxxon suggested above would be a logical first step, you would need to stabilise the chip (hot glue & a fixture?) to stop it lifting into the tool path close to the end of machining and if it suits your application you could probably then CNC it and still stay within your budget.

- Nick
This is the attitude that I like to hear! I have discussed a hand mill with colleagues and due to the parameters that we would have to work with wouldn't be an option, nobody here would trust themselves eyeballing the depth going through the PCB.

As for holding the chip in place as we will be destroying the board regardless, I am thinking of cutting the chip out from the board so it will sit flat on its back and some sort of adhesive to hold it down.

You mentioned about being able to CNC it within budget, would this be with the chinese cnc machines found on ebay?

Thanks for the reply.