I have a very good dos program CADPAK and I use an old rowland DXY-880A plotter. Results are fantastic . I modified the height of the plotter pen to accomodate standard thickness PCB board. Only problem is it wont do tracks fine enough for intertrack knecking , itis also very slow on printing directly onto the copperlaminate but I have a cup of tea. Fine for prototyping.
----- Original Message -----
From: Bob Butcher
To: Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, July 20, 2010 9:53 PM
Subject: Re: [Homebrew_PCBs] Inkjet or Laser for PCB work?
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
--- On Wed, 7/21/10, gnuvvekaavaali <gnuvvekaavaali@...> wrote:
From: gnuvvekaavaali <gnuvvekaavaali@...>
Subject: [Homebrew_PCBs] Inkjet or Laser for PCB work?
To: Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com
Date: Wednesday, July 21, 2010, 12:22 AM
I am looking for suggestions on the choice of
Inkjet (for direct inkjet printing) or laser
printer (toner transfer) for the occasional single sided PCB.
I don't see I will be needing very thin or dense tracks.
My experience with toner transfer have not been too good. I
used a Samsung Laser printer, and a hot clothes iron,
with different types of paper.
Best results have been with glossy magazine paper, but still
had some improper transfers.
The Epson Artisan 50 inkjet seems to be moddable for direct pcb printing, and I can get that for cheap.
Wondering if this is a easier and reliable way than toner transfer.
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