Review of bobhaha's contact boards!

[Calcifer]

So I open up my express mail package from bobhaha to find this:

[Backstory]

I had every part ready to go, except for a contact board. I really wanted to get it done for a camp that I'm going on (18th of Jan) so I messaged bobhaha to see if he could give me a spare contact board he had lying around in time. Instead, he laser cuts a batch of them for me and express posts them to me for free. :drool:

All he asks for in return is an honest review of his board. So here goes.

Disclaimer: These were a prototype, and are by no means a finished product. bobhaha even told me himself he was not satisfied with this batch, but it was all he could produce given the extremely short time-frame I had given him.

To quote him:

Got your contact boards out today. To be honest, I'm not really impressed by the quality of them. But since we were strapped for time I guess they will have to suffice. The FR4 board that I made them from, did not respond well to Fibre engraving or cutting, so they are fragile. I am going to be ordering some better FR4 board with thinner copper coating.

The board is sturdy, and I really liked how he had cut his own name into the board. I went to pick one up, and suddenly this happened:

(The copper lifted off the board, bobhaha has since ordered a different kind of board that he believes will stop this from occurring, so not to worry.)

All I had to do was just cherrypick one of the boards that had the copper stuck down properly all the way round and then there was no trouble from there on out.

The solder bonded to the copper very well (had to give it a shine first however, they were slightly dirty when I first got them.) And so now after a lot of pain and frustration I now have a working ~1.7W 445nm laser

Here is a close up of the batch:

 

[Calcifer]

Seems my picture links don't work. If anyone knows which websites this forum is able to rip images off, please let me know so I can fix it

 

[dubious speculation]

Try using photobucket. Easiest site to link pictures to. (in my experience)

If you're using photobucket I'll post pics showing you how to if you'd like.

 

[Tmack]

Good to hear you got it working. Sounds like he really went out of his way to help a fellow member.
That's why I love this forum. The good guys heavily outweigh the few bad ones.

 

[jander6442]

Here you go

 

[bobhaha]

Awesome, thanks for the review!

I'm happy it got you up and running.

The material just did not want to work with the YAG laser we have at work. Instead of blasting away the material it was burning and causing all sorts of problems. But I believe I can get MUCH better results with a new type of FR4 board that I have just ordered in.

Accuracy is within 10.6 microns, but due to the board burning instead of cutting it put the final dimensions out of whack by about 0.2mm which is pretty pathetic considering the machine costs $120,000.

-Adrian

 

[Calcifer]

And thankyou for the free boards!

I did actually notice that some of the boards were looser in the brass ring than others, but once again I put it down to you saying that the board didn't want to cut very well. I'm glad you believe you can fix this and I wish the best of luck in marketing your boards! :beer:

-Peter

Awesome, thanks for the review!

I'm happy it got you up and running.

The material just did not want to work with the YAG laser we have at work. Instead of blasting away the material it was burning and causing all sorts of problems. But I believe I can get MUCH better results with a new type of FR4 board that I have just ordered in.

Accuracy is within 10.6 microns, but due to the board burning instead of cutting it put the final dimensions out of whack by about 0.2mm which is pretty pathetic considering the machine costs $120,000.

-Adrian