high-speed spindles

There's definitely some validity to your feelings, but... Porter Cable's trimmer has a head, ie the bearing support closest to the collet, that's made of aluminum rather than plastic. This is stronger & more stable than plastics and certainly viewed favorably. Unfortunantly, there's no obvious and "hardy" method of mounting. Certainly doable, but time consuming and likely to require multiple variations. Now, if Porter Cable had a 1/8 in. collect for their trimmer or if .015 diameter end mills were available with 1/4 inch shanks, their trimmer might be worth a try, especially if a good mount became apparant. Otherwise, on to a Dremel grinder with less vibration & a 1/8 inch collet, unless someone knows of a better spindle or "grinder" about the same size, which should be out there somewhere.
Hul
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On Thu, 11 Apr 2013 10:41:41 +0000 (UTC), snipped-for-privacy@kbrx.com wrote:
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Reducing adapters are readily available.
Basiclly a 1/4" shank with a collet adapter on the end. Easily found
Gunner

Hul Tytus wrote:
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I've been making solder stencils using the exact same process and equipment I used to make PC boards. I use 3 mil brass shim stock (I started with 5 mil, but the 3 mil works better). I wet-sand the brass to remove an oil or plastic film that prevents tarnishing. I use a hot roll laminator used for laminating dry film photoresist to PC boards to put the resist on both sides of the shim stock, using a paper shim to get the right roll pressure (as the machine is adjusted for laminating .062" PC board stock). I run the brass through the laminator twice to get both sides coated with resist.
I built a laser photoplotter some years ago, and make two master artworks, one a mirror image of the other. I glue the two artworks together, aligning them on a light table. I slip the resist-coated shim stock between the artworks and put in a vacuum frame, and expose both sides to UV. I develop in dry film developer and etch in a spray etcher with ferric chloride for about 2 minutes.
The big problem with this is figuring out the right aperture size for each pad size. I am getting this process dialed in, and the boards are coming out better and better. I do some parts with lead pitches down to 0.4 mm, which is real tricky. SO and even SSOP chips are working perfectly now, but anything smaller than 0.65 mm and I have some bridging.
Jon

Jon - sounds like you have a good process for the stencils but you had the advantage, initially at least, of using it also for pc boards. In terms of time & money, assembling the equipment needed just for stencils is costly. On another subject, have you found an easily interfaced merchant account for credit cards for your web site? I'm planning on selling some electronic gear over the internet and I'm looking for suggestions on handling the cards.
Hul
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snipped-for-privacy@kbrx.com wrote:
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Yes, the accuracy of laser printers makes it unlikely this would work well from a laser printed transparency film as the master artwork, especially as you need mirror image films that have to align pretty well.
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I am using Merchant Warehouse, with Authorize.net as the payment gateway. Between the two, it costs about $45 a month to have these accounts. Merchant Warehouse has a minimum $35 fee.
Using OScMax, they only have an interface to Authorize.net AIM, but not their SIM. AIM has your web site receiving the credit card #, which then means you need to be PCI compliant. I'd much rather use the SIM interface, which shifts the customer over to Authorize.net's web page to do the credit card transaction, but OScMax doesn't have an interface for that. The PCI compliance nightmare keeps me up at night.
Anyway, unless you are at least as serious about an on-line business as I am, you really DON'T want to get involved in this, it will take a LOT of time to make it work and keep it secure.
Jon

Jon - thanks for the suggestions about credit cards, especially authorize.net's AIM & SIM interfaces.
Hul
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snipped-for-privacy@kbrx.com wrote:
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If you find a good web store that works with Authorize.net SIM, or another good payment gateway that you can use without having to be PCI compliant, I'd sure be interested. I'm not a PHP coder although I can generally follow what is going on in the osCmax scripts and make very small changes, I'm nowhere up to speed to try rolling my own interface to Authorize.net's SIM.
Jon

Jon - if you are familiar with the C programming language, you might look... it's been a few years and I'm not up on the proper buzz words; stated more generally: there is an http:// interface attachment for Unix systems, something or other C this that..., which enables coding internet pages with c. You would probably find the name of the attachment and the name of the company that makes it familiar. Whether this would be an advantage with Authorize.net's Sim interface is merely hope on my part. Take a look at rs-big-print.com to see what has been done so far.
Hul
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anyone had any experience with Paypal credit card handling?
I just got one of their card readers the plugs into the headphone jack of my cell phone.. Seems to work well enough. I think its something like 2.7% per transaction
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.paypal.here&hl=en
Gunner

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Check that rate - and unless you really need something only they offer like tapping into online eBay funds, I'd still be wary just because it's Pay-Pal. They have a long history of behaving badly.
"We don't have to follow normal Banking Rules, we're not a Bank. We can freeze your money if we want, and we decide whether you get it or the other party. And we can clean out the attached checking account and you don't have any say in the matter. Oh, and don't try calling, we don't have phones for customers - e-mail your problem and we'll get to it when we choose to."
We got Square for Westend, and IIRC it's 2.1% or 2.3% to clear, and they drop it in the company checking account. Bada-Boom. And Intuit has one too...
If you were using Credit Cards for an online store you almost have to go with a regular Merchant Account - I don't know if any of the Phone-based systems let you type in a credit card number by hand and process a 'No card present' or 'Mail Order' sale - the whole reason for the mag-stripe reader dongle is proof you had the card in your hand and it looks legit to you.
If you generated enough volume of sales to justify the monthly fees, the clearing percentages are far lower and you would do a lot better with a regular merchant account.
But for onesy-twosy in-the-field credit card sales (and some months none at all) they phone-based systems can't be beat.
--<< Bruce >>--

On Sun, 14 Apr 2013 18:35:59 -0700, "Bruce L. Bergman (munged human
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Ive never attached my checking account to PayPal.
Intentionally.
Gunner