How to use the Modela

Roland Modela can be used to mill circuit boards.

Step by step

Modela buttons, from top: Power, View, Up, Down

1. Design the circuit board
2. Stick a piece of PCB stock onto the cutting plane
3. Open Cad.py
4. Click input and get a design file

Make the toolpath

1. Make the toolpath for the circuit. Use a 1/64" tool, which is 0.0156" decimal.
2. Click CAM
3. Click Output format and choose .rml (Modela)
4. If you're using a circuit board written in Python, you'll find a line near the bottom saying "#dpi = 500 ". Remove the hash sign ("#")
5. Set contours to -1 (meaning infinite)
6. Click Contour

This will have it start making the toolpath.

Milling the circuit itself

Cutting out a circuit board

Using Eagle

A nice tutorial about this was written by people at the Delhi Fab Lab. It should be uploaded.

http://fablab.marcboon.com/pcb/