Bantam Tools Blog

The Bantam Tools Desktop PCB Milling Machine was designed to make CNC milling, and in particular making PCBs, easier and more accessible than ever before. We set out to democratize PCB production, putting a powerful tool within reach of engineers, artists, educators, students, and makers of all stripes. To some, however, the software choices available to create PCB design files seem prohibitive and difficult to use. Enter Patchr, innovative new PCB design software that employs an easy-to-use circuit design tool.

Here at Bantam Tools, we believe one of the most important assets we can provide to CNC mill users is a robust library of support materials. Sharing knowledge is caring about community. To that end, we've been digging through our extensive Bantam Tools archive of support materials and unearthing some timeless gems to resurface and share.

Over on our YouTube channel, one of our most popular videos happens to be from 2015, and it's still proving to be useful, getting views and positive comments to this day. It covers Converting Gerber Files to G-Code with FlatCAM, a skill useful to any PCB designer and CNC mill user. 

With the professional precision and reliability the Bantam Tools Desktop PCB Milling Machine offers, it can singlehandedly turn your classroom into an electrical engineering lab.  We're confident that once you see what our easy, fast, and affordable Bantam Tools Desktop PCB Milling Machine can do, you'll want one in your classroom.

There's something infectious about 80s synth music. You almost can't help but to get visions of classic Atari games. Bantam Tools content developer Emily Coker was intrigued by a synth project we put out about four years ago and wanted to give it a healthy refresh. The result is our new 8-Bit Capacitive Synth project (click link to see full project), a super fun build for anyone with a Bantam Tools Desktop PCB Milling Machine, from seasoned pros to students. 

Editor's Note: A solder mask is a thin layer of polymer applied to the copper traces of a printed circuit board (PCB) for protection against oxidation and to prevent solder bridges from forming between closely spaced solder pads. Community member, physician, and technologist Craig F. Feied has developed a great technique for applying solder masks to boards milled on his Bantam Tools Desktop PCB Milling Machine, which he has documented and shared here.

Adafruit's super-talented Collin Cunningham shared a great how-to for making custom pins using copper PCBs as the base material—double-sided, copper-clad FR-4 boards, to be exact. Collin used not just any mill, but our reliable little PCB mill to make the project. We got a sneak peek at these neat pins in our recent roundup of community builds.

With the wealth of materials our Bantam Tools Desktop PCB Milling Machine can handle with ease, the potential of what you can make is endless, but the area where our small-but-mighty mill shines the brightest is in milling PCBs. After all, PCB is our mill's middle name. We put professional precision and reliability directly on your desktop, so the rate at which you prototype is only limited by your imagination, not the return rate of the board house you use. To boot, we've got you covered with a full library of support guides, detailing all aspects of milling PCBs. Here we offer an overview of our PCB-specific guides. 

We recently heard from one of our intrepid community members, Dave Cox, who reached out to share a guide he's written about using the Othermill and Otherplan to make mechanical prototypes using Altium. Dave is an engineer at SeeScan, a company that specializes in designing, manufacturing, and supporting  diagnostic and utility-locating equipment.