Electronics has been our working area for more than 20 years now. As a result hundreds of electronics companies worldwide use our machines now. This way a lot of experience has been built up which is reflected in the actual machines. These are not only the ones that have been especially designed for this market but also the standard range and the tailor-made machines. Colinbus is delivering a range of products that makes the life of an electronic engineer much more comfortable.

The system is simple: instead of chemically removing the copper it will be milled away now. The milling machine gets its instruction directly from the computer now so that films are no longer required. Colinbus PCB milling machines can do drilling, milling and routing. Isolation tracks of 0.1 mm are perfectly possible. This means that the system is suited for analog, digital and high-frequency circuits. The software that comes with the machine can read the files that you have made into your preferred CAD software. Most commonly used are Gerber (X) and Excellon but DXF, HPGL and other formats can be used as well.

Prototyping is an important part of the development process. But the pressure on engineering becomes higher and higher. It has to go faster and be cheaper. Subcontracting is not really an option because it does not satisfy any of these two conditions. Chemically doing it yourself has become irresponsible and against the environmental laws. For these reasons more and more designers choose the Colinbus PCB milling machines. It is the freedom to make PCB’s in-house, fast and cheap that speaks. Lab’s that are equipped with a Colinbus system can quickly and easily deliver an end product because the machines can also be used to mill front panels or to drill holes into cabinets.

But there are more reasons to choose “in-house” prototyping: confidentiality for example. A lot of organisations and companies do not wish their projects and designs to go out of the office, especially not in the development stage. When one chooses outsourcing then not only do the projects leave the house but because of long waiting periods the development engineer tends to loose attention to the project. A designer who has to wait a week for prototypes to come back has no other option than to go on with another project which leads to poor overall results.

A very important advantage of Colinbus milling machines is the fact that apart from PCB milling one can do a lot more for example milling of SMD stencils. Thanks to the quite large working area it is possible to mill stencils for a large variety of standard frames. Also the templates with the holes to frame the stencils can be milled without any problem.

All Colinbus machines are suited to drill circuit boards and testing moulds but only the PCB machines are delivered standard with the required software. On top of this, these machines have an alignment system that makes precise drilling much easier. This feature is available as an option for all other machines. Due to the motor driven Z-axis there is hardly any restriction to the thickness of the material to be milled.

The product “look” is very important. Engraving front panels still is one of the most attractive but also one of the most expensive methods. Apart from engraving text, milling the holes for displays and switches is possible with the Colinbus machines. Important to know is the fact that these front panels can have a thickness of up to 4 cm! In contradiction to devices without motor driven Z-axis, with these machines an engineer can really finish the complete prototype in-house.

In the everlasting search for space one has found the 3 rd dimension in electronics too. Just think of 3-D MID or shaping in graphite. Some of these techniques use bewerkingsmachines. Colinbus not only offers full 3-D machines, but also the finest diamond tools for any high-precision job.

For PCB prototyping the choice is clear: a range has been especially designed for this purpose. This does not mean that this cannot be done by the other machines but quality will be much lower and often too low to meet the requirements. This is because milling very small circles and tracks requires special software as well as hardware.

But when it comes to drilling circuit boards, milling front panels or 3-D modelling, these standard machines are a good choice without any problem.

If equipped with a dispenser all machines are suited for applying soldering, conductive or filling paste.

Visual control of PCB’s, stencils, hybrids, components etc. The same camera can be used for alignment and registration purposes.