Inkjet was fiddly because the ink doesn't just lay down flat and cover
the board. It's shot down in tiny little droplets. On paper this is
not such a problem because it sucks the ink up, and any tiny gaps
don't matter much anyway. But it's darn hard to get an even coat that
isn't running together where it should not. It helped coating the
board with brake fluid (of all things!), or propylene glycol. Next
thing is curing, you need to bake that ink to make it etch resist, at
least the one Volkan and myself were using. Keeping the inkjet heads
free from clogs was another big issue, especially if you don't use it
every day.
I had the first useful toner transfer much quicker, and achieve
perfect transfers now virtually all the time, I never got there with
inkjet. Also I can make a board now, and the next in 10 months, and
all I need to do is dust off the laminator. I don't think that's
easily possible with injket.
A laminator is highly recommended for toner transfer, the iron was
just too inconsistent for me. So you should look for it again or make
a new one. You should also expect to buy a printer that works and some
paper if you don't have anything suitable already.
A: People who just don't give a damn.
Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?
ST
On Mon, Jan 25, 2010 at 8:37 PM, David Griffith <dgriffi@...> wrote:
>
> In what way is direct inkjet more fiddly? If you mean by aligning things,
> I can handle that. Most of the stuff I lay out is single-layer anyhow.
> I've thought of the photo process, but the price of pre-coated boards
> scares me off. I'd like to be able to cut a piece of board for what I'm
> up to and not have to waste an entire larger board for that. How about
> spray-on resist?
>
>> I'd give toner transfer another shot, the combination of right
>> pronter, right paper, right laminator, and right clean boards can not
>> fail. I'll be happy to advise if you line out what you have done so
>> far and what goes wrong, I've done a fair bit of messing about with
>> TT.
>
> I had a modified GBC laminator of the sort that Pulsar advocated. I
> haven't a clue where it wound up. Pulsar suggests that the laminator
> works with their product, but not with Press-n-Peel. I used an iron last
> night with Press-n-Peel and absolutely nothing transferred.
>
>
> --
> David Griffith
> dgriffi@...
>
> A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text.
> Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
> A: Top-posting.
> Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?
>
>