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

This is odd. I have been doing toner transfer for almost a year now
and can get very good results - fairly repeatable. Since learning
more and more and since I have run out of the original photo papaer
I was using, I have been working with two different papers of late.

1) HP Photo paper -glossy
2) Hammermill color laser paper - it's a semi-gloss

Earlier this week I needed to make a board so I selected what I
thought was the best working paper I had on hand, the Hammermill
paper. I printed out the layout and could tell right away there
were problems as the toner was VERY thin in some areas. So, thinking
I had it wrong in memory, I then grabbed the HP paper and all went
well.

As typical for me, I screwed up that PCB (forgot to make some
changes) so I had to make it again (3 days later than the previous
attempt). I grabbed the HP paper, printed out the layout and this
time it had very thin deposits of toner on the traces. So, I
grabbed the Hammermill paper and it worked perfectly.

The only thing that changed from the first attempt and the second
attempt is 3 days in time. Same printer, same cartridge (no, it's
not low on toner), approximately the same outdoor
temperature/humidity, and even the same layout for the most part.

So, while I would like to think that toner transfer will work good,
there are some hidden mysteries to it that seem to make you scratch
your head in bewilderment!

Chris