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

I finally got a chance to experiment some with the dry film resist. I
just did a quick test where I applied the resist and put pennys on the
surface. Here is what I have learned so far.

1. There is a coating on each side of the resist. A plastic and a
mylar side. Make sure you remove the plastic side before laminating.
How do you tell which side is which? I am not sure yet. I just got lucky.

2. Lamination with my stock GBC H200 laminator works great. I ran it
through three times and it stuck just fine. It was easier than when I
do toner transfer.

3. Be careful of the resist overlapping the board. After laminating I
found my pcb stuck to my carrier. No real problem. I just cut it out
with the knife.

4. Leave the mylar film on until you finish exposing. I did not do
that. When I went to develop all my resist washed away! Fortunately, I
accidentally did not remove all the mylar. The areas where the mylar
was present during exposure stayed stuck when soaked in the developer.

5. Make sure you remove all the mylar. Despite the fortunate case in
4, you really want to make sure all the mylar is removed before
developing.

6. I used Arm and Hammer washing soda for developer and it worked just
fine.

7. Exposure time under a fluorescent lamp was about 30 minutes. Good
enough for a quick test and maybe for one board I am working on that
is does not have fine pitched components. I will need a better light
source for my more complex board.