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

Ive been EXTREMELY careful of fumes using this method and am going to CuCL exclusively. FCL is just too poisonous to the environment (imho it should be outlawed). The reason im so cautious with this is ive played with 90% nitric and copper and breathed in the fumes and it was bad. Sickness, nausea and i could tell acidic fumes had done damage to my lungs and airway. That is from a good breath or two of the stuff, no more. I dont know the specifics but i bet the gaseous byproducts are similar or identical. I wouldnt etch indoors using this process period without some kind of fume control (your kitchen stove hood might work but i dont want to think about the effect).

Btw you think watching a fast etch is cool you should see what high grade nitric does to copper (and that is without an oxygen source).