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

Folks,

First, I want to say "Hi". I just recently started making my own
single and two sided PCBs and even more recently joined the group.
There is a lot of great info here!

The question I have regards the etchant I have been using: 1 part
muriatic acid and 2 parts H2O2 (hydrogen peroxide). I found the
formula on a web page about (what else) DIY PCBs. As I was wanting to
try making my own PCBs and the materials were easy to obtain and low
cost, I decided to give it a try.

All in all, I have been quite happy with the results so far. I
haven't tried any real fine line etching yet and the smallest SMD
devices are 0603, so they are pretty big. The etchant is clear, so it
is very easy to keep your eye on the board during the etching process.
Plus, I have been doing all my etching at room temperature with no
heating at all. It generally takes about three minutes to fully etch
the small (2x3" are the largest so far) boards I am working with.

So the questions are:

1) How does this etchant compare to more traditional etchants?
2) Does it have over etch / under etch issues with finer lines?
3) Anything else I should be aware of?
4) Anyone else used this etchant along with the others that can give
a pros/cons?

Thanks for the help and all the info in this group.

Clint