Archive of the former Yahoo!Groups mailing list: Homebrew PCBs

The other day I posted about a baffle I was trying to make. My goal
was to get good agitation with good dispersion of bubbles. Someone
said I had too big of holes, which weren't that way when I started.

Anyway, based on that comment I realized you can only get so much
power (Air) out of a tiny fish tank pump. So, like all "real men"
do, I opted for more power! MUCH MORE POWER!

I connected my big shop air compressor to the new baffle I made up.
I turned down the regulator till I could barely feel air comming out
of the air gun. Then I held the baffle hose to the air gun and like
magic I had good bubbles and lots of them - everywhere.

Knowing that I will forget to turn down the regulator when etching a
board at some point, I will wait until I can hook up another
regulator for attachement to the etching tank. That way, I should
be able to reduce the risk of having the whole tank of ferric
chloride sprayed about the shop.

It's still very dangerous in my opinion, but rather than buying
another fish tank pump, this is the next cheapest solution.

The point of this post is, poor bubble volume and dispersion may not
be the problem of the baffle (Hose, stones, etc.), but rather not
enough volume of air going into the tank.

I suspect this will even out the etching and etch a heck of a lot
faster than before!

Chris