Hey Mikey,
I must have stuffed up 15 toner transfer attempts before I got a
situation that works.
Bottom lines:
- Using an iron is pushing your luck. It introduces too many
variables with respect to temperatures and heat flow. If you
do it during the right lunar angle, with the right facial expression
and the right music playing in the background, it might work, but
then again, it might not
- a laminator will take away your pain, especially if it's got spring
loaded rollers (test this by feeding in a stack of 16 sheets of
standard 80gsm laser/copy paper - if it doesn't choke, it'll be fine)
What's working for me is:
- print artwork onto any inkjet photo gloss card stock, preferably
thin stuff (120-180gsm if possible)
- clean board with a tissue and toothpaste, taking care not to create
deep scratches (toothpaste is great because it's got small abrasive
polishing particles, as well as detergent chemicals (yumm!))
- warm up laminator to its max temperature and its slowest motor
speed
- feed board+paper thru laminator, corner first
- after 5 passes, gently lift corner in a curling motion (do not fully
remove paper) and see if the first bits of toner have transferred
- if any bits of toner are still stuck on paper, then feed board+paper
through for 5 more passes
- curl paper off the board a little further, and see how you're doing
- repeat previous 4 steps till all toner is transferred to board, and
none is remaining on paper, shouldn't take more than 10-30 passes
all up
Then inspect for breaks/joins in traces. Fix joins with a fine knife.
Fix breaks with a superfine etch-resist pen.
For etch-resist pens, forget the $10+ ripoff ones from DSE and Jaycar,
they're much too coarse. Go to your art supplies store and get a
Staedtler Lumocolor 313 superfine red pen (not black, or blue, because
only the red has the etch-resist chemistry).
If that pen draws too coarse, then:
- go back to your art supplies store (or a stationery store) and get a
0.1mm Staedtler marker pen (they often come in wallets of 4, from 0.1
to 0.7).
- using long-nose pliers, pull the tips from the 0.1 pen and the red
Lumocolor pen
- get a 3.0 mm drill bit, and very carefully drill it 5mm up the shaft
of the lumocolor pen, taking care to remove all particles
- wash the 0.1mm tip in water, maybe even taking a mouthful of water and
blowing it thru the 0.1mm tip, till the tip is white. dry thoroughly
- insert the 0.1mm tip into the lumocolor pen shaft
- carefully shake the new hybrid pen till red ink appears at the tip
- you now have an ultra-fine etch resist pen
Cheers
David
milkgonefunky wrote:
> Howdy,
> I have recently just started trying the toner transfer method with
> very odd results. I started trying a variety of papers (I am in
> Australia) and found that HP Premium Glossy Photo blah blah paper
> worked. The first thing I did was a power supply for uni project. Yeah
> it worked okay. Fair few pinholes, but I put this down to inexperience.
>
> My next project was a whole heap of gainclones (amps, check
> diyaudio.com). Every single one came out perfect, well all except the
> super thin traces which I had for a keepout layer. Not important at
> all. I was printing with a HP Laserjet with HP toner cartridges.
>
> Just the other day I was making some bodgey circuit and I did the same
> process, except the toner wouldn't stick to the board at all. Usually
> I would get the paper sticking to the copper, but that wasn't even
> happening. I thought it might be my iron, cause my sister constantly
> leaves it on when she leaves for work in the morning and it stays on
> all day pretty much every day, so I figured it might be stuffed and
> not getting hot enough. Tried a few different irons and still the same
> result. I eventually got enough toner to etch but still the paper
> wasn't sticking like the time when I got the great results. I figured
> perhaps the paper might've been exposed to the air too long? I noticed
> some other photo paper I got with my printer (can't print on it with
> laser though, goes all weird) comes in a foil sealed bag. Maybe all
> photo paper has this problem? My other thoughts were that the copper
> has to be hot too, and perhaps we weren't getting the copper hot
> enough. I was thinking if this is the case, that heating it first with
> a heat gun, then pressing the paper onto it, then ironing it would help.
>
> Anyone able to help me explain what is happening here or if anyone
> else has had these problems?
>
> Can anyone else in AU suggest paper that works great? Even printers? I
> am lookign at a laminator soon from Officeworks. Do they make a big
> difference in the results over an iron?
>
> -Mikey
>
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