I got a Snapmaker Artisan and I really would like to exposure PCBs with the laser. My ideal workflow would be:
1: Put PCB in jig on CNC platform
2: Laser photo layer
3. Switch to cnc and drill holes and outline
3. develop and etch pcb.
Now I’m struggling to import the data into lightburn. If I go over pdf the outlines are not there.
Question: Can I use a black and white image of the pcb and laser with it?
I would export the pcb from pdf to 600dpi b/w image and then import it into lightburn.
Probably… I’d suggest you use Lightburn trace to ensure there are no other items in the artwork.
The problem with all of this is registration between the machine…
A pcb for any of the smd mount and even many through hole designs are pretty small.
What frequency exposes your layer? It might be moot if your laser won’t really cause the reaction to allow you to etch it…
This link shows how it was done… However he does use acrylic paint that is burnt away with the laser… He also drills the holes with a drill press… Not really what you want to do if it’s very complicated and using dips as the holes need to be correctly aligned…
If you can export the data as SVG, it will import directly. Setting the layer to Fill, rather than Line, should do pretty much what you want. The program creating the SVG vectors may not play well with LightBurn’s filling algorithm, but there’s no way to know without trying a few combinations.
