Hi Everyone

Electronics is my area of expertise but I have been drawn into the world of CNC routing/milling by the need to create some plastic packaging.

My company supplies electronic components mainly to hobbyists; hackers; makers and that means taking components from large trays or tubes that they are supplied in by the manufacturer and packaging them individually. If you have ever bought components on-line you will find that they are typically just put in a little bag. I wanted to come up with a better packaging solution that would give more protection to components in the post and just be nicer than a plastic bag.

I decided that vacuum formed plastic packaging would be the way to go and started to look into what was involved. Naturally I contacted packaging companies and although I had anticipated that there would be costs for creating moulds I had no idea how expensive it would be. The problem being that components are all different shapes and sizes so a tiny LED is not going to work very well in a plastic container big enough to fit a 28pin chip in it, it will just rattle about in there. Each different shape would require a new mould and considering many of these components are sold for pennies that was not going to be an option to spend hundreds or even thousands for a large aluminium mould for each shape of component.

Well what is someone like me who likes to make things and solve problems?

My fist thought was to use a 3D printer to make a temporary mould that I could take a couple of forms from to create a master mould that could be filled with a resin mould compound to create the final mould. Despite all the hype 3D printing just isn't good enough for this purpose, laying down layers of plastic leaves imperfections in the surface that need to be manually worked on afterward otherwise these marks would show in the final plastic.

This lead me to laser cutters that unless you spend 10's of thousands really don't have the ability to cut deep enough and are limited in the materials that can be used. Then finally I decided to look at a CNC router or mill to cut the mould as it gives the most accurate results and the most flexibility in the materials I can use. I can create prototypes and short run moulds from MDF, slightly longer lasting moulds from a block of epoxy resin or possibly even a long lasting one from Aluminium.

I started out looking at the many small low cost CNC machines on eBay from Chinese sellers and then discovered by reading this forum and a lot of sites on-line that while those machines are pretty good for the money that the typical 800W spindle based models are not really well suited to mould making especially if there is any work on aluminium.

So now I am looking at getting a machine that will be a bit better suited to aluminium probably with a 2.2Kw spindle and a moving bed rather than moving gantry for less vibration.

Anyway I decided to join the forum as I'm sure I still have a great deal more to learn about milling machines and CNC and hopefully share some of what I have learnt along the way with others. Especially anyone looking to do vacuum forming with moulds made on their CNC machine.

Darren