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

Hey guys,

New guy here.. I need to make a board for a project Im am currently
working on, it has been some time since I made one I wanted to see if
there were any new moethods since my last project.

One thing that caught my eye was the direct injet printing method. I
like the idea, but for the few boards I need to make every now and
then it wouldnt really be worth the hassle for me.. More so to
maintain the injet head so it is not clogged when I want to used it a
couple of times a year.

Anyway I was goofing around with my last few pieces of boards with
some ideas I found here, only to find out that radio shack no longer
carries blank boards.. OK this sucks.. Now Im ready to build part of
my project and have to order boards ;(

So I got to thinking about the direct printing of the board.. Seems
the big problem was finding the right ink then the right method to
cure it..

So I thought that if the ink sticks to the copper, maybe I could print
on a piece of copper then go from there..

I went to the local hobbie shop, found a roll of copper .002 made a
sheet of fiber glass board (have some cloth and resin in the garage)

The Copper went throught the printer no problem, and to my surprise
the ink stuck, But would not dry.. guess thats why you guys are curing
it.. Next, I printed another piece of copper, this time I sprinkled
the wet ink with some powder coat ( I do powder coating part time)..
shook off the extra and put it in the toater over.. Perfect, The
powder baked and hardend were all the traces were, the thin coating
that was left behind easily came off with scotch brite ;)

Now the next problem.. I can not find an adhesive that will bond the
copper to the fiberboard..

The best results were with polyurethane glue (gorrila glue) , copper
stick to the fiberglass but the glue becomes pouris and under cuts big
time once it starts getting through the copper.

about the onlything that I have not tried yet was super glue (dont
have any)..

So does anyone have any ideas, that might be available localy.

If so, this could be a pretty good alternative for the guy who only
makes a board here or there. I realize that not everybody has a bunch
of powder coating sitting around in the garage, but I think I heard
sears now sells it as well as I dont see why old toner carts wouldnt
work either. or for that matter, you could always buy the yellow mips
ink and keep a spare cartrige for you current everyday printer.

Thanks
Bill