Cutting standard V3.0 main board down to metric size
Posted: Fri Apr 21, 2017 5:52 am
As per the title really.
The standard USA sourced board and case is 4" wide.
Unfortunately the rest of the world uses metric, and has done for a few decades, which means 100mm is what we buy over here which is slightly narrower (by 1.6mm) than a 4" board (and one hell of a lot cheaper than trying to import a USA 4" case and/or paying the extra for custom PCBs that are 101.6 wide, all the PCB fabrication places I use do metric only).
Because all my add-on boards are, inevitably 100mm, to stay "legal" I have to use a genuine V3.0 board in my case.
So, can i just mill 1.6 mm off the side(s) ?
There is nothing obvious on the outer layers that would suggest this would be a problem but I haven't a clue what the two inner layers are - presumably power and ground layers - but how far does the copper extend to the edges of the PCB ?
Would I be best taking 1.6mm off one side, 0.8mm off both sides, but would either expose the inner planes/traces and short out ground and/or power to the slots in the case ???
Rod.
The standard USA sourced board and case is 4" wide.
Unfortunately the rest of the world uses metric, and has done for a few decades, which means 100mm is what we buy over here which is slightly narrower (by 1.6mm) than a 4" board (and one hell of a lot cheaper than trying to import a USA 4" case and/or paying the extra for custom PCBs that are 101.6 wide, all the PCB fabrication places I use do metric only).
Because all my add-on boards are, inevitably 100mm, to stay "legal" I have to use a genuine V3.0 board in my case.
So, can i just mill 1.6 mm off the side(s) ?
There is nothing obvious on the outer layers that would suggest this would be a problem but I haven't a clue what the two inner layers are - presumably power and ground layers - but how far does the copper extend to the edges of the PCB ?
Would I be best taking 1.6mm off one side, 0.8mm off both sides, but would either expose the inner planes/traces and short out ground and/or power to the slots in the case ???
Rod.