Hello everyone!
I have recently discovered the toner-transfer method for making PCBs (I have previously used stripboard or dalo pen)
I tried my first board last week and I used the instructions from:
http://www.riccibitti.com/pcb/pcb.htm For the most part everything seems to work OK but I'm having some issues it seems with the toner spreading out too much.
I am using a Lexmark T522 with original toner, and was using paper cut from the pages of an old "Next" magazine. I used an iron to do the .. ironing.
The printer prints very crisp and clear and the toner sticks very nicely to the copper. The paper is also easy to remove afterwards.
However, while still satisfactory and usable, some of the pads became a bit too big and some of the tracks did not have a well-defined straight edge.
I was able to scratch off excess toner with a knife to make the pads smaller and etched the board anyway. I was using normal components and thick traces with overall quite a lot of room for error but I need to get this issue resolved if I want to make anything with fine tracks or SMD parts.
But I am wondering what I did wrong? I tried twice to iron the board (first time I tried moving the iron around but also moved the paper and smudged the image and had to clean and re-do it).
The second time I just held the iron on the paper, pressed down and waited about a minute.
Can anyone who has done this before give me some advice as to what might be the cause of my problem??
Thanks in advance.