Cutting PCB’s - recommendations, tools etc

[irving2008]

Well, I have a simple parallel port chinese TB6560 controller and I use one of the input pins on the controller setup in LinuxCNC as a probe. There are 5 input pins on my controller and 1 common, so with a lead connected to the common and another connected to the input.

With the probe attached to the tool, the Z axis comes down and when the tool makes contact with the board, it measures the height and adjusts the rest of the g-code to suit the board at that point.

which is fine until you forget to remove the croc clip before cutting :) . Also a solid tool rather than a sprung 'plunger' means the Z-travel, and therefore the mapping speed, has to be much slower to avoid damaging the copper surface... but it works....