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

I have completed a test board which I took pictures of and posted in
the photos section under C88 Test PCB. I think the biggest step to
getting a good ink transfer was preheating the PCB before printing. I
used a small heat gun my wife uses for stamping. I warmed it up to
about 75C. With the heating I did not get any pooling of the ink
which I had before. I believe Stephan was saying he had pooling too.
I think this must allow some of the ink to dry before more is put on
top. What time of the year was Volkan printing maybe the boards were
warmer to start with (summer)? Printing in black but with all carts
magenta (EPSON TO603)works great. I get a very good layer of ink.
After etching the ink still looks the same. It will not come off with
a casual wipe with acetone but will mostly come off with continued
scrubing with acetone. The curing is almost the same as Stephans. I
am giving it a little more heat 240C to 245C and a little more time 5
minutes than I did in the photos. I have given it up to 20 minutes
of time and it still worked fine but the epoxy was getting very
brown. All the traces were very good with no breaks down to what
Eagle says is .001 in. on the PCB. I'm not sure if the Epson is
really printing that small as it is hard to measure. The photos are
not as good as I would have liked but the light meter was not working
in the camera and it was hard to get good light on the board when the
macro lens was so close. I beleive that this is a very good start for
me and I will have pictures of completed boards in the future. I will
also post some pictures of the printer but it is very much like
Stephans. The C88 appears to be the same as as a C84