Choose Material

Decide what type of material you'd like to use. Consider the size of your CNC machines spoil board when deciding the size of your stock.

The BantamTools Desktop PCB Milling machine has a maximum build area of 5.5" x 4.5" x 1.6" (139mm x 114mm x 40mm). Your stock should be smaller to accommodate for probing alignment brackets and installing a tool.

Measure & Cut Material

Measure the length and width of your desired material, followed by the thickness.

Cut your material down to size to fit within the working volume using a power tool or hand tool, such as a hand saw, miter saw or similar.

If you're using the PCB milling machine from Bantam Tools, we suggest keeping the length of your stock ~130mm (5in) and width ~100mm (4in).

Top & Bottom Facing

If your material is slightly warped, you'll want to face both the top and bottom surfaces of the stock material.

If your material is 13mm thick, you will need to get it down to 11.5mm thick. This means you'll need to remove 0.75mm of material from the top and bottom of the stock.

Download Tool Library for Fusion 360

If you haven't already, download and install the Bantam Tools library for Fusion 360. Click on the link below for a walkthrough of installing the library.

Model Stock

In Fusion 360, create a new design and make a new sketch on the floor plane.

Enter the length and width of your material using the sketch dimension tool.

Use the extrude feature to extrude the sketch profile and enter the materials thickness. This example rounds off the value to 13mm.

Stock Setup

In the manufacturing workspace, create a new stock setup.

Click on the bottom left, upper stock point of the stock model.

Select the stock tab and enter 0 for the stock side offset and stock top offset.

Click OK when finished.

Face Operation

Select the face operation under the 2D dropdown menu. 

Under tool, click the select button. Search for the 1/8in Flat End Mill in the Bantam Tools Fusion 360 Tool Library and click Select.

Face Speeds and Feeds

Update the values in the Feed & Speed tab, spindle speed, cutting feed rate and the plunge feed rate.

Under the Heights tab, update the offset value under the Bottom Height section.

Under the Passes tab, enable Multiple Depths and enter 1mm into the Maximum Step down text field.

Click OK when finished.

Simulate Face Operation

Click on the simulate icon in the actions dropdown menu.

Use the playback controls to simulate the face operation.

Post GCode

Right-click on the face operation under the setup in the Browser panel.

Select Post Process. Under Post, select Bantam Tools.

Enter a file name under the name/number text field. For example, 1-8-face-100x130mm.

Click the folder icon under the Output folder and choose a desired location to save the gcode file.

Click Post when complete.

Material Setup in Bantam Tools

In the Bantam Tools software, click on the material setup icon in the menu.

Enter the stock dimensions under the material size section.

Under material placement, enter 0.3mm in the material offset z text field.

Initial Setup in Bantam Tools

Click on the Initial Setup icon and then click Open File.

Browse and locate the gcode file from earlier and click Open.

Under the T1 section, click and select the 1/8in flat end mill tool from the dropdown menu.

The next page walks through prepping your stock onto the spoil board.

This guide was first published on Jun 15, 2022. It was last updated on Mar 08, 2024.

This page (Material Setup) was last updated on Mar 08, 2024.

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