--- In
Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com, kabowers@... wrote:
> Could you maybe do an addictive process?
>
> I wonder what would happen if you spread a film of loose toner over
> the board and then used the laser to melt it where you wanted traces.
> Then dust the board off and etch. Might want a second heating with a high
> intensity lamp or some such to more firmly fuse the toner to the copper.
I will be interested to hear some expert opinions on this. I suspect there will be two problems: 1) Getting the toner to stay on the board in a suitably dense but even layer -- seems like that would require charging the board and the toner, somewhat like what happens in a laser printer, but now trying to do it out in the open. 2) The laser will heat the toner rather than the board. Getting the beam strength/time just right to heat rather than vaporize might be tricky (? or not? I don't know enough to predict), but even if you get it just right to where the toner melts without vaporizing, the board underneath it will not necessarily be hot, so will the toner necessarily stick to the board?
I certainly may be wrong on either or both of these points, of course! Again, I am interested to hear what the experts say ... or to hear about someone's experiments.
But even if it does work ... I wonder if the end result is going to be any faster/more satisfactory than toner transfer, particularly if the laser can't get finer than 8 mil.