[sdiy] rising cost of PCB's?

[Tom Arnold]

On Mon, Apr 27, 2009 at 10:15:21AM -0500, Jerry Gray-Eskue wrote:
> So far the promo paper works the best for me also but I am looking for
> something better, any larger area of toner transferred tends to have pin
> holes. The tracks are good but I have seen other results posted on the web
> that were excellent. Also some of the Gloss Photo paper I have tried
> transferred very clean in some areas of the board but had removal problems,
> lifted some tracks, and/or left a plastic looking residue behind.

I use the Press'n'Peel Blue vs photo paper or other treated papers.
The main reason is it seals the top of the toner.

If you look athe the Pulsar process :
http://www.pulsarprofx.com/PCBfx/main_site/pages/direct_etch/how_it_works/how_it_works.html

In particular scroll down to "The FOILS:" where they show using a second
pass to attach foil to the top of the transferred toner.

I did a board just last night in fact ( prototype ) double sided 1oz copper
1/16th, using press'n'peel.  I forgot to do a final alcohol wipe so I lost a
few bits of trace, but otherwise it went easily.  Touched up with nail
polish because as usual my resist pen has dried up when I needed it.  Etched
in about 10 minutes in my heated/aerated FeCL3 bath.

Oh, a neat trick if you can't find one of the good laminators ( good =
heated roller ), tear apart an old copier or laser printer, or find a fuser
assembly.  Before I bought a dry-mount press I used to jam 1/16" pcboard
through one and it worked fine.  I think it came out of an HP Laserjet II.

All this being said, if I did more boards I would either buy a CNC router or
switch to Photo process.

-- 
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 - Tom Arnold       -  Free Synth DIY webspace http://www.sdiy.org 
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