I first heard about "wet lamination" in one of Karl Dietz's articles in
CircuiTree.
http://www.circuitree.com/Articles/Column/ac577d14667d7010VgnVCM100000f932a8c0____http://www.circuitree.com/Articles/Feature_Article/93ce8a1fc08d7010VgnVCM100000f932a8c0____Originally I made a hot water roller laminator machine that circulated
filtered water in a heated tank. The filtered water was ejected between
two rubber rollers while the PCB and film were brought together and
laminated by pressing action of the rollers.
It worked well, but it was fiddly positioning the film and it could
wrinkle if the film wasn't perfectly flat over the roller.
Since then I scrapped my machine and went for a much simpler approach.
Basically I lay the PCB horizontal and use squeegee to apply the dry
film. I'll explain it properly later.
Adam
Markus Zingg wrote:
> Adam,
>
> I'm intersted to see your way of applying the resist. :-)
>
> I agree that applying it is something you need to get the hang of it. I
> meanwhile simply use a sheet of typewriter paper onto which I put the
> PCB. The laminate is then attached to the front of the paper by pressing
> a small stripe onto the paper with a finger. I then lift the film with
> one hand and feed the paper with the PCB on it into the laminator. Since
> I do it this way, I never had any probelms with air bubbles or wrapped
> film etc. It should be said that how well this works in general depends
> on the kind of laminator too and that's why there does not seem to be
> the "only working method" for getting to good results. It's definately
> an area where everyone must experiment a little and find the best method
> for his own needs. Factors that have influence here IMHO are:
>
> - the diameter of the rolls (IMHO the bigger the better)
> - the amount of pressure the rolls apply (usually this can be regulated
> with screws in the laminator)
> - the temperature
> - the amount of time you allow the laminator to have en even temperature
> across the rolls. I usually let my laminator run for at least 15 minutes
> bevore I start using it.
>
> Again, never heard of applying it "wet". I'm definately interested to
> see the pictures. Tanks in advance for takeing the effort.
>