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

Hi folks,

I have been out of good paper for a while now and have tried a variety of different ink-jet photo papers (wasting a substantial amount of money). Yesterday I tried this paper

Office Depot Inkjet/laser Brochure & flayer paper (premium gloss)
Item # 244-369 (lower right corner of package)
Barcode # 3585477585
100 sheet package
I think the price was around $20.00 or so - lost the reciept

I printed on it with my HP laserjet P1505
Ironed it on the PCB using an iron set just below "High"
I did run it through the laminator twice but the ready light was not yet on so it probably didn't do too much to help.

I soaked the board in water for about 5 minutes, then I peeled the paper back over itself to remove most of it. The layers in the paper sepperated which left some paper on the board. I soaked it again for a few minutes and rubbed the remaining paper off with my fingers. A perfect transfer!

The board I made was a very simple board using only a few larger through hole parts (headers and terminal blocks). However, I did have a lot of lettering on the board and all of that came out great.

The PCB stock I used had some nasty dark stains on it to start, I wet sanded it with 320 grit paper to remove most of the stains, then washed it with Comet cleanser, rinsed it with water, dried it with paper towels.

As a side test, I had a layout for a larger circuit board which contained several surface mount chips - one being a 100 PIN QFP package that is 13mm x 13mm. For this board I just grabed the board from my pile of stock, put the paper on it and ironed it. No real attention to any details or prep. The transfer worked very good including that 100 leg IC chip - so good that I probably could have etched it with success.

So, if you are out of your favorite "magic paper" and need to try something new, I would recomend you try it.

Chris