EasyTrace5000 Is a New Browser-Based CAM Tool for PCB Fabrication

Professional PCBs are now cheap and easy to get, which is a fantastic thing for our community. But most of the affordable fabrication companies ship from China, which usually means waiting a week or two to get your boards. That’s a problem for fast iteration, so you may want to fabricate your own boards at home. EasyTrace5000, built by Ricardo Marques, is a new open source, browser-based CAM tool that can help.

If you aren’t familiar with CAM (Computer-Aided Manufacturing) software, the basic gist is this: the software takes a PCB design file as input and spits out machine instructions as output. But that is more than just a conversion, because the CAM software needs to decide how the machine will move to produce the PCB you want. Those toolpaths are very important for the quality and functionality of the final product, so CAM software needs to follow sophisticated strategies under the user’s guidance.

For those reasons, CAM software is often expensive and tends to be pretty resource-intensive. EasyTrace5000 solves both of those problems, giving you a free tool that you can use on most computers through a browser.

Right now, it has a workflow intended for milling/routing PCBs on a CNC machine. It accepts Gerber files, Excellon files, and even SVG files. It displays the PCB with surprisingly nice graphics, giving the user the ability to create clearing toolpaths, drilling operations, and so on. It can then output g-code, including machine-specific commands.

Marques tells me that he hopes to also add a laser workflow soon, which would be perfect for the new crop of prosumer UV lasers that have just started hitting the market, like xTool’s F2 Ultra UV model.

If you want to try EasyTrace5000 for yourself, you can access the free web app right now—no registration, payment, or sign-up necessary! You can also go to the GitHub page if you want to dive into the code or take a look at the documentation.