OK, I'm always listening. I have a laser printer. I use it to print my
"film". I use vellum for my media. I don't have a laminator, though I am
looking into getting one as I am current experimenting with a dry film
resist that I apply myself. I just got some this afternoon actually and
have yet to mess with it. I understand that a standard flat iron will work
for the application.
What has worked for me, without fail, is the positive pre sensitized boards,
which is probably what you refer to. Pricey, true, but works great, and not
very labor intensive. After printing out the circuit I place it and the pcb
in a holding frame. I expose it to a uv light (though a standard light bulb
is claimed to work) for 24 minutes, put in a developer bath for 2-3 minutes,
and then etch. I do 10 mil traces with 6 mil spacing without thought. I
haven't tried anything less than 10, haven't need to.
The negative method should work about the same, except that I apply the film
to a plain piece of copper. What I find attractive with the negative method
is in the printing of the film. I use a lot of flooding. Ground planes,
etc. Nice thing about that is the etching time and etchant consumption is
reduced. Bad thing is the toner consumption is up. All that flooding is
toner. With the negative system the part that is toner is removed, not
kept, so my toner consumption is down, along with the stingy etchant use.
Since I haven't done this yet, all I write is hearsay. I also don't know
about my line widths.
Back to the toner transfer method. All my transferring was done using an
iron. Sometimes it stuck, sometimes it didn't. Fine traces never did.
Paper type made huge amounts of difference, could never find the right kind
I guess, even after reading many of the posts here. Maybe the laminator
will make a difference, but I'm still up against paper selection and line
widths. Perhaps you can shed some light on this, since the transfer method
may improve my making 2 sided boards. Now that would definitely get my
attention.
On Fri, Feb 12, 2010 at 4:02 PM, sailingto <sailingtoo@...> wrote:
>
>
>
> Given up on Toner Transfer? You must be using the process I tried first.
> Once I "finally" broke down and got a $90 laser printer and a $25 GBC
> laminator toner transfer works like a champ!
>
> I've not tried the photo resist method - seems more expensive, at least the
> boards are.
>
> Good luck, Ken H>
>
>
> --- In Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com <Homebrew_PCBs%40yahoogroups.com>,
> Barry Demers <sdad@...> wrote:
> >
> > Thanks. I have had a miserable time with the transfer method, and have
> > pretty much given up on that procedure.
>
>
>
--
Thank you,
Barry
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