Well, I redesigned the controller board so there is no need for any jumpers, and then I etched it out. It took 3 bits to finally get it done, and with the bit replacing it moved like .05mm to the left, and the drill points were a bit off and I said fuck it and threw it away.

One of the reasons I found for the bit braking was, in my routines for milling the different objects, I would have it move the end mill to the desired location at fast slew speed until it was 0.1mm above the board, and then it would transition to the slower milling slew speed. Well, the board isnt exactly the flatest surface and it bows a bit in the middle, so the mill would slew super fast, and contact the board faster then it should have been, and it would break bits err now and then. So, to correct this, I changed the firmware to instead of traveling to a fixed point (0.1mm above board height) above the board, now it travels to 1/4 of the travel height (the height at which the dremel slews at fast speed around the board) and then transition to the slower mill speed. That did help quite a bit, but the 0.5mm with 5mm long point was just too weak and wore out quickly. If it was 0.5mm and only like 1mm long, it would be so much more durable I think, but its not. And I cant just trim it I dont think, or it would change the design of the bottom and not be quite as well for digging into the material vertically and produce more problems.

So I spent a few more kozlowskis and got some nicer bits, and it seems to be working a billion times better. While I was waiting on those to come in the mail, I redesigned the controller board again to reduce the number of lines needed to be etched, making it quicker to etch, and reduce the chance of breaking these new bits.

So with the first revision of the new board, I etched one out and did some testing with the power supply traces, and I ran about 3 constant amps from one end to the other for a few minutes to see if those traces were large enough to handle the current they'll be seeing, and they didnt even feel warm really after the end of it, so I'm sure it will suffice. I used a .7mm bit for that first board, and I'm using a 0.6mm bit for the board after this, so the traces will be even larger to provide a little more room for safety.

The new board is currently etching right now, and I also decided to buy a nice soldering iron and one with a pencil tip so make the soldering of lots of pins in small spaces easier/nicer. Before, I was using a 5 year old radio shack soldering iron with a huge tip I filed down a bit to help with the small pins, but it still sucked.

So thats what I have going on in my life right now. I'll solder up this new board tuesday when I get the soldering iron in the mail (god I love amazon prime) and redesign the enclosure to make it more accommodating to the new board and the connections for the key pad.

I'm still debating if I want to make an acrylic base for this, which would be really nice, but would increase the cost of the project quite a bit from what it already is. The wood is warped just a tad bit, and I would really like to replace it, but #yototheloamiriteboiz.