I am in the design phase of the toaster oven controller, should have
it done today, or perhaps tomorrow. When I get the controller portion
done (the board just finished and stuffed was the mains-driver
portion) I will be making a PC board for that. At that time it will be
a simple matter to run out a few more samples with different volumes
of ink being deposited for comparison purposes. I wish there were a
way to gauge from the Epson driver software just how much ink we are
depositing with the different settings. Would be nice to have some
sort of graduated scale like 10 being greatest 1 least then creating
and running samples in between. Does anyone know of a conversion from
the Epson setttings to relative amounts of ink being deposited? Or
perhaps we know that Matte, Best Photo deposits a lot of ink, what
would be the next setting which is slightly less, etc. Hopefully we
can dvise some way to quantitatively determine how much ink we need
for resist. Also not knowing a lot about inks, is it possible that
Volkan might have a heavier pigmented batch of MIS yellow. Might it be
that the yellow might be richer with more pigment but the same
yellow? Just wondering about the consistancey of the product from
batch to batch. Not sure...
John
--- In
Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com, "Stefan Trethan"
<stefan_trethan@...> wrote:
>
> Yes, braking fluid does the same.
> I was only able to do a single test with propylene glycol so far but
it
> seems to work even better (needs confirming).
> You can also get a similar effect if you smear around the old ink
from a
> failed attempt instead of cleaning it off completely.
>
> But still i need to use the highest ink density setting, while Volkan
> seems to need much less.
>
> ST
>
>
> On Fri, 22 Sep 2006 00:06:12 +0200, jam5411 <mardock@...> wrote:
>
> > Back to the PC boards and the inkjet process - I have struggled for
> > two days trying to produce another PC board but to no avail until
> > about an hour ago.
> > A little history if what transpired first. I seems that everytime I
> > fed a cleaned PC board into the inkjet I would get very small pools of
> > ink - the ink was not dispersing on the PC board. (I remember
> > distinctly not seeing that on the sample resolution board I had made,
> > photographed and uploaded.) Upon etching the resultant board would,
> > with magnification, have runs that looked like a childs connect the
> > dots puzzle. In other words were ever there was one of these small
> > pools there was enough ink that when cured would be a fine resist. But
> > adjacent to these pools there was not enough ink remaining to form a
> > resist. What had I done differently on that test board? I went back
> > through the process over and over in my mind, yes old minds work a bit
> > more slowly... I found the wipe that I had used in the trash, it had
> > the consistancy of a lint free paper towel that I used as a final wipe
> > (after dipping in iso alcohol) but seemed different. Well what I had
> > done was grab a dried out "Simple Green All Purpose Wipe" that had
> > been laying on the bench from who knows what. Quickly I prepared
> > another test board and as a final wipe before inking the board used a
> > new Simple Green wipe. Viola the deposited ink laid absolutely smooth
> > on the PC bd stock. Cured it, etched and CNC'd, ready to stuff now. I
> > can remember thinking at the time I was getting the small pools that
> > some kind of surfactant was needed but what to use. I am not a chemist
> > , so cannot explain why this works, just glad it does! I am also sure
> > that this is not the best answer either but it sure a step in the
> > right direction. Perhaps some of you that are more in the know can
> > come up with a better solution?
> > If any one wants pics let me know and I will take some and upload.
> > John
>