Alnilam
Desktop PCB fabricator — "design a board at noon, hold it the next morning"
- Science Castle 2021 — 5th THK Award, Best Development Prize
- Geekten 2022 — Top Prize, Hardware & Embedded Category
- Selected for NEDO NEP entrepreneurship program (2026)
The problem — outsourced PCBs break your development rhythm
While building robots for RoboCupJunior in high school, I realized that ordering PCBs from a fab meant expensive shipping and about a week of dead time per iteration. The speed of your trial-and-error loop is the engine of development — and the PCB was the bottleneck.
So I decided to build a machine that fabricates double-sided PCBs on a desk, the way a 3D printer makes parts. That machine is Alnilam.
The approach — milling × chemistry
The hardest part of double-sided fabrication is the plated through-hole (via) that connects the two copper layers. Alnilam solves it with this process:
- CNC milling: a GRBL-based CNC mills the copper traces, drills holes, and cuts the board outline on a single machine
- Electroless plating: a custom-developed electroless copper plating process (PdCl₂/SnCl₂ catalyst, EDTA bath) plates the through-holes
- Finishing: electro-refining and resist treatment bring the board close to factory quality
When the project demanded chemistry beyond my expertise, I recruited a chemist from my network into the team and established the bath process from scratch through literature research and repeated experiments.
The software — Alnilam Controller
I also built Alnilam Controller, a Python desktop app that converts Gerber data from KiCad or other EDA tools into G-Code and drives the whole machine. The goal UX: load your board files, press one button, get a board.
Commercialization — from a high-school invention to NEDO
Alnilam is now on a commercialization track, built around one value: letting students and researchers iterate at full speed.
- 2024: validated US market entry through JETRO’s J-StarX program at Stanford
- 2026: selected for NEDO NEP (entrepreneurship program); currently developing the business plan and piloting an educational kit at my alma mater, Rakusei Senior High School
Media & talks
- In-depth documentary coverage on TV Tokyo’s “THE Meimonko” (2023)
- Presented at Science Castle 2021, Geekten 2022, and other tech showcases