Collin Cunningham on How to Design, Mill, and Paint Custom PCB Pins

Adafruit's super-talented Collin Cunningham shared a great how-to for making custom pins using copper PCBs as the base material—double-sided, copper-clad FR-4 boards, to be exact. Collin used not just any mill, but our reliable little PCB mill to make the project. We got a sneak peek at these neat pins in our recent roundup of community builds.

As part of the Adafruit Learning System, Collin's project walks you through all the steps: design your vector art in SVG format in Adobe Illustrator, import it into our software, mill, paint (with acrylics), glaze (with two-part epoxy resin), dry, and mount pin posts. Since you get to make the design of your choice, the possibilities are endless. 

Note: We recommend milling FR-4 only if using the FR-4 Milling System, in order to reduce unhealthy fiberglass dust.

Here's a visual synopsis of the process. Check out Collin's full how-to for detailed instructions.

If you end up making custom PCB pins of your own, we'd love to see them! Tag us on your social posts with #bantamtools and @bantamtools, or send your pictures in via support@bantamtools.com.