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

Equipment used:

Brother 5140 laser printer (standard toner from factory)
Staples photo paper
GBC H100 laminator
Old, cheap clothes iron

1) Printed the bitmap at 600 dpi

2) Wearing latex gloves, trimmed PCB patterns from single sheet

3) Cut 1 oz Cu board into 2 1/2 x 2 1/2 pieces using a table saw

4) De-burred edges of cut boards with a fine file

5) Wearing Latex gloves, scoured boards with a dry 3M abrasive pad
(green one for paint removal)
a) First scour diagonal
b) Second scour opposite diagonal
c) third scour right to left (or up/down depending on how you look
at it)

6) Wearing another pair of latex gloves, wiped each board with paper
towel soaked in acetone. Wiped each a second time until towel
remained clean after wiping

7) Rested boards in front of a small space heater (my workshop was
cold this morning, so it was already there and running)

8) Heated laminator, mated photo paper and board and fed through
corner-first. Once the paper adhered to the copper (1st pass usually)
then fed through the laminator another 7 times-- 90 degree rotate on
each pass, then flip the board and repeat the 90 degree rotate with
the other side up

9) Using a clothes iron at MAX heat, gently pressed each already-
laminated board/paper combo and moved the iron slightly after a
minute to ensure uniform heating. Once the paper browned a bit, the
board/paper combo were set aside to cool while working on the next.
Approximate cool time 4~5 minutes

10) Warm water soaked each for 10~15 minutes and the paper peeled
away pretty easily

11) A quick, gentle scrub with a soft toothbrush followed by thumb-
rubbing removed almost all traces of paper, leaving just copper and
toner on all pieces, ready to be etched.

I've tried to do detail with an iron and it never worked repeatably.
I tried big, long traces with the laminator and never got predictable
results. I combined both techniques for this experiment and 5 out of
5 boards are perfect-- both in details (4 pt. "+" signs for cap and
LED anodes, etc)

The laminator was, I think, $49 USD. The clothes iron was probably
$25 USD. The results combining the two are awesome!

The most important part to any good toner transfer seems to be the
preparation of the copper though. It (and you photo paper too) need
to be AS CLEAN AS POSSIBLE or all bets are off.

Just thought I'd share this short recipe for success and hope
everyone gets something from it.