Once upon a time not so far away a friend of mine set out to write a program to transform a layout of a PCB (printed circuit board) into commands for a computer-controlled milling machine. The idea: if the mill bit would carve out the copper selectively, a PCB could be made. Without nasty chemicals and such.
What does that have to do with you? Well, you are making use of at least one PCB. Right now: your computer/smartphone/thingy contains those: they are at the heart and core of all electronic devices. And somehow us engineers have to make prototypes. A CNC mill seems a good idea.
Well, it is. At least when you can stay within the principal limits of mechanical fabrication: todays super-miniaturized electronic components require PCBs that can only be manufactured using optical methods and chemicals. But for the very simple, non-sophisticated day-to-day stuff I am making, a milled PCB should be sufficient. If I could just get the mill to do it.
Long story short: I am finally there and have a process running, that is sufficient and workable for me. And as usual: my work rests on the shoulders of the community: I explored quite a few OpenSource projects, forum posts etc. to study, learn and finally find something that did almost what I wanted it to do and lent itself to modding it into what I use now.
The technical details are on a separate page.