Roland Modela MDX-40 Bedienungsanleitung

1 How to create PCB using MDX-40A and Fab Modules First edition published in 6th May, 2014. This document was written by

10 Select “Document” layer. (Actually whichever layer will work) Draw the rectangle to include whole area of the circuit. Click to put an origin poin

11 Select only Document layer we created now (by clicking “display” button as mentioned above). You just see the rectangle as shown below.

12 Repeat the above process to create the monochrome image. Finally, you will get a PNG image as below.

13 4. Create RML with Fab Modules Open a terminal on Ubuntu. Type “fab” and hit enter. The following dialog will appear. Select .png for format

14 Click “load” to load png image. Choose your PNG image.

15 The PNG image loaded. Select “mill traces (1/64)” for creating milling file. Check the parametes. Normally you don’t have to change these value

16 The default preview is complex, so let’s switch to simple view. Select “segments” in the dropdown menu. Now we are ready to create a milling scr

17 Go to the directory where you typed “fab” command. (It’s your home directory in Ubuntu by default: /home/<username>/) You can see there is a

18 Change parameters. Set “bottom Z (mm)” and “cut depth (mm)” to -5.0 and 1.2 respectively. NOTE: DON’T CHANGE THE VALUE if you are using MDX-15/

19 5. Set origin of MDX-40A Use VPanel on Windows to set the origin. After you set the origin, unplug the USB and connect it to Ubuntu. We set the sp

2 Table of Contents 1. Requirements 2. Install software 3. Create PNG image with EAGLE 4. Create RML with Fab Modules 5. Set origin of MDX-40A 6. Co

20 6. Configure CUPS CUPS (Common Unix Printing System) is an open source printing system for UNIX-like OS. We use CUPS for communicating MDX-40A,

21 Click “Adding Printers and Classes”. If you are prompted to enter your username and password, enter it according to your system information. (it

22 Select “Roland Modela MDX-40A” and click “Continue”. Click “Continue” to proceed.

23 Select “Raw” and click “Continue”. Check if “Raw queue” is selected. Click “Continue”.

24 Click “Set Default Options”. You don’t have to change the default values. Now you successfully configured CUPS. Added printer is supposed to be n

25 7. Change scale of RML with Python script The RML files we created in the previous section work fine for MDX-15/20. However, we found out that we

26 except: print "Input a valid number!! Aborting." exit() pu = re.compile("^PU") z = re.compile("^

27 print 'Convert x:'+str(x)+"->"+str(sx)+", Convert y:"+str(y)+"->"+str(sy) newline

28 Then you will be prompted to input some information. By default, just put the values as shown in the figure. -------------------------------------

29 Hit enter, and the dimension will be magnified 2.48 times as large as the original size. Do the same thing for a RML file of cutting outline.

3 1. Requirements PCB milling with MDX-40A and Fab Modules was tested in the following environment. OS: Windows 7 32 bit and Ubuntu 12.04 LTS 32

30 8. Send RML data to MDX-40A Attach 1/64” end mill to the spindle and set X,Y,Z origin using VPanel. Disconnect USB cable of MDX-40A from Windows

31 After milling the PCB layout, change the end mill to 1/32” and set the Z origin. You should not change the X and Y origin at the moment. Send the

32 9. Troubleshooting 1. Cancel job If you want to cancel a job, you can do it from CUPS. Go to the following location and click “cancel job”. http:/

33 2. Printer is paused lpr command doesn’t run if the printer status is “Paused”. This usually occurs after you push emergency stop of MDX-40A. To r

34 If the printer state is “Paused”, you have to resume it. (Otherwise it is no problem.) Select “Resume printer”. You will be promted to enter you

35 Check if the printer is “Idle” now.

4 2. Install software Windows Install a driver for MDX-40A and VPanel software from an install disk. Ubuntu 1. Fab Modules Go to CBA-MIT website and

5 3. Create PNG image with EAGLE We are going to create a PNG image for milling and cutting outline. Open your .brd file with EAGLE. Select “disp

6 In this case we selected “layer1: Top” layer.

7 Go to File>Export>Image. Name a file to output. Don’t for get to check “Monochrome”. Set the

8 resolution high enough (for example, 2000 dpi). You get a PNG image as below.

9 Secondly, we create an image for cutting outline. We draw a rectangle to indicate the area of PCB. Click a rectangle button as shown below.