Thanks for letting us know about printers. I currently use a Cannon
Pixma MP810 (the all in ones). I have not compared it to any other
printer other than my previous printers. Thats because I need to really
take close look at the prints, and try different settings, and you can't
do that in shops.
The darkness is very good , but the line edge jaggedness and resolution
is somewhat poor among all inkjet printers I've looked at. I've don't
believe black sharpness or ink drop placement accuracy could be a lot
better in future printers, simply because its already exceptional for
normal reading and text. For PCB artwork use, we are pushing the limits.
BTW, the defects I'm talking about are only visible when looking under a
microscope.
Markus Zingg wrote:
>
>
> Adam,
>
> Long time since. Nice to see you are still around :-)
>
> If you look at the example picture I uploaded, you can see the pads of
> an LQFP164 with a heat absorbing pad in it's center. Thats a 0.4mm pitch
> part. It worked out well. As for the printer, I fully agree that here it
> really depends. If with "inkjet" you refer to a HP inkjet you are
> definately out of luck. I use an Epson Stylus C62 which was and is well
> known for it's exceptional acuracy and deep black covering miles away
> from what other inkjet printers can do when specifying "premium glossy
> paper". I heard that the Cannon Pixma 3500 which is a more recent model
> performs as well. Most people refuse to belive that there are such great
> differences between printers, but there truly are. All I can say is that
> I tried several inkjets back then, and the Epson outperformed the others
> to such a great deal that I rushed out and bought two of them to have a
> backup should the first one break!
>
> You may want to give a Cannon Pixma 3500 a shot. It's a fairly cheap unit.
>
> Markus
>
> > I had attempt at stencils. The main difference between PCB and stencil
> > your trying to etch 100um~150um instead of 35um. Any professional who
> > etches stencils, will double side etch. I was trying to etch for QFN
> > packages with 0.5mm pitch, and could not get the required accuracy. All
> > the other component pads were usable. It was only this particular IC
> > that caused me problems. Major factors affecting the accuracy of the
> > stencil were limitation on my inkjet printer resolution and etch
> > undercut. I tried compensating for etch undercut and even tried double
> > sided etch, but failed to get consistent apertures for the 0.5mm pitch
> > pads. In the end I paid $180 for a brass stencil , which I mounted to my
> > own frame.
> > For parts like 0603, 0402 , 0.65mm pitch TQFP, then I think home brew
> > stencil etching is quite feasible.
> >
> > I was new to stencils and solder past printing so maybe someone can
> > prove me wrong.
> >
> >
>
>