Flatbed plotters are available. I have tried this approach and never
found a good solution. The main problems were that the ink tends to
creep so you don't get a very sharp line and the pens block very easily.
About the best result I had was by printing with red ink onto photo
sensitive board. Then expose and develop as as per normal. This saved
the hassle of producing a transparency but was hardly worth the effort.
Les
On 21/07/10 10:53, Bob Butcher wrote:
> I have had a lot of trouble with toner transfer as well. My Brother 1440 laser printer toner will not release reliably from any paper I have found. I have heard the toner has a higher melting temperature than some other printers, but am not sure what the problem is.
> I am not sure how you plan to modify the Artisan 50 inkjet printer to directly print on the rigid PCB material. Another thing to consider, most of the ink jet ink I have seen is water soluble, so the etchant will dissolve the ink before it has a chance. I know there are ink jet printers that are capable of using solvent based inks, but all the ones I have seen are very expensive, in the several thousands of dollar range. You can buy inexpensive "paint pens" from art and craft stores that might be useful if you could find a flat bed printer that could be adapted to pens. I have on old large format HP printer designed for CAD drafting that uses pens, but the pen only moves on one axis, and the paper is fed back and forth by a roller system for the other axis. The paper is wrapped around the rollers, so it cannot be easily adapted to a rigid PCB. If someone had a flat bed printer with a moving pen on two axes, that might work. Sounds like an old school
> chart recorder might work, if you could find a working model that would interface to a modern computer.
>
> Bob
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