Hi Jerry,
Papermaking requires multimillion dollar equipment, well beyond the scope of
the homebrew pcb vendors.
Pulsar has carved out a very nice niche by repackaging and reselling some
very standard industrial materials. Some people have success with their
products while other people find them overpriced and worthless. There are
just too many factors in toner transfer for anything to be 100% reliable.
For example, the "green' film is a standard heat transfer foil. You have
probably seen the gold version used to hot stamp stamp jewelry boxes. If you
remember the early days of laser printers, before inkjets came out, you
could buy (and still can buy) "laser foil" to add metallic colors to
certificate.
Dextrin is a very cheap starch used in papermaking as a "sizing / coating
on paper to bind it together and make the surface smoother.
There is nothing "magic" in these products. Other than the "magic" of
marketing and making a profit.
You'll need to try a few different papers and techniques and find one that
works for you under yor conditions.
Myc
On Thu, Mar 19, 2009 at 2:45 PM, Ken H> <sailingto@...> wrote:
> Hello Jerry - it's been several days since your post and I'm VERY
> interested in how the Brother worked with the release paper and green foil
> from Pulsarprofx.com. I also have the Brother 2140 laser printer and have
> used with it some success on TT.
>
> I use a toaster oven set at 450F for about 10 minutes to be sure it's
> headed thru my aluminum clamp assembly. I had read on the Pulsarprofx the
> Brother would not wrok at all because it uses a hotter type toner. Are you
> using the OEM toner?
>
> I'm a newbie here and am reading and learning.
>
> Thanks to all for input.
>
> ken H> K9FV
>
> --- In Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com <Homebrew_PCBs%40yahoogroups.com>, "
> jerrytr2.com" <jerry@...> wrote:
> >
> > Hello,
> >
> > I just bought some release paper and green foil from pulsarprofx.com.
> Well, actually from Digikey, but it's the same stuff. In his instrux, the
> guy specifically warns against the use of Brother printers. It's not the
> first time I've heard this. He says that Brother uses a unique
> high-temperature toner that just will not fuse to circuit boards.
> >
> > I have a Brother 8860DN multifunction printer. It's a fairly new,
> high-end machine. Does 1200DPI, duplex, etc etc. Importantly for our stuff,
> it does mirror-imaging.
> >
> > I've done several double-sided boards with the Brother. I've gotten
> traces to work as small as 15-mil.
> >
> > On the latest board, it didn't quite make it - this was a surface mount
> board with a 64-pin QFP, requiring lots of 10-mil traces. Four of them broke
> while I was ever-so-gently scrubbing the paper off.
> >
> > But that's not the sort of failure I read about with the Brothers: I read
> about wholesale failure of toner to transfer at all, which is definitely not
> the case here. I wonder if Brother "saw the light" and made their toner a
> bit milder WRT temperature?
> >
> > Digging through the web, I found this pulsarprofx guy who says that his
> paper "just floats off", and his foil will stop etchant from going through
> the toner. Sounds good to me. I'll be trying it tomorrow. With the Brother.
> >
> > The paper is fairly pricy, at $14 for 10 sheets. On the web site, he says
> it's covered with "dextrin", which as far as I can tell, is starch. Wonder
> if one could make paper like that by spraying the ordinary stuff with starch
> solution? I can probably stretch this stuff to where it's not an issue by
> cutting small pieces for my board printouts.
> >
> > If the Brother won't play, I also have an HP 1020, which I keep loaded
> with MICR toner for printing checks. But I still have the original cartridge
> somewhere, with all of one sheet printed on it.
> > The HP only does 600DPI, and something they call "FAS1200". I guess
> that's short for "Fake 1200" :). And the driver doesn't do mirror printing.
> It's the original driver from when I bought the printer - at least four
> years ago. I see there's a newer driver dated 2007. Anybody know if that one
> does mirror print?
> >
> > - Jerry Kaidor
> >
>
>
>
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