I clean my boards with a scotch brite pad. then I use 91% isopopyl alcohol to clean the residue.You have to clean the board untill there is no more residue on your paper towel..I have a GBC h525 laminator that will take a .062 board and the paper easily.
I run use an iron to tack the paper to the board then I run my boards thu my laminator at least 10 times to make sure the toner transfers. I use HP Presentation Paper as my prefered paper..my boards come out looking great with minimum touchup of the toner necessary.
Regards
mike
________________________________
From: Kerry Wentworth <
kwentworth@...>
To:
Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.comSent: Mon, February 8, 2010 10:56:49 PM
Subject: Re: [Homebrew_PCBs] Well, that didn't work
I usually clean the board with steel wool, then alcohol. I'd avoid
TarnX. You don't want the copper to be too smooth. I normally make 4
or 6, or even 8 passes. I have noticed that, even with 1X3 or 2X2
boards, the Ready light goes out sometimes when the board passes
through. Did you have the Temp switch in 5mm? I usually let the board
cool before soaking, but I use magazine paper.
Properly applied toner can be scrubbed with a toothbrush and not come off.
Kerry
jimofc300 wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Yesterday, I tried my first PCB. I used Pulsar's "Fab-in-a-Box" system with their GBC "Personal" laminator. After following Pulsar's directions, some traces just floated off after soaking to remove the backing paper. First, parts of the board outline (5 mil) drifted away, followed by some of the traces (10 mil) and pads. Can anyone here tell me what I did wrong and how to fix it?
>
> In more detail, I printed their Toner Transfer Paper with a new HP 1005 printer, using the HP demo catridge. I set the density to 5 (max) before printing. The print looked ok. Could the HP demo cartridge be different (cheaper maybe) than the regular HP cartridge? I let it sit around for maybe 30 minutes before laminating, while cutting and cleaning the board. Could that be it?
>
> I cleaned the board, by Pulsar's recommendation, with, first, a little dish soap on a green "scrubby" then with Tarn-X using a paper towel pad, rinsing thorougly after each. I wore latex gloves to avoid fingerprinting my clean board. Could my problem be in cleaning the board? Is there a better method?
>
> I ran the board and TTP through the laminator twice--forward and backward, per instructions. One discrepancy is that I didn't have the water bath immediately at hand and it took about a minute to get some water. Could the board have cooled enough in one minute to cause my problem? Also, I left it in the water several minutes rather than one. Is soaking too long a troublemaker?
>
> I note that the worst of the problem was at the back end of the board (relative to my first pass), though there was some toner floating off in the middle, too. Does the laminator (which I let warm up over 30 min) lose its heat so quickly that it doesn't do a 4" long board evenly? Would more passes through the laminator help?
>
> Any other problems with my method that could cause this failure?
>
> Thanks,
> Jim
>
>
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