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

Thanks for the reply. It helped a lot. I'm more or less just curious why it's not available. Dynamask looks really promising, but is unavailable here is the states. If something is unavailable, there is usually a good reason for it. Demand seems to rule what is available.

I have some of the liquid solder mask that I purchased on ebay. I've tried on two occasions to get it to bake until it's tack free, but I haven't been able to see any results from this. Maybe I'm not letting it bake for long enough or at a high enough temperature. When I pulled it out of the oven is was as tacky as when I put it in. I don't remember the length of time I baked it for the first time, but the second attempt I used 160F deg F for 10 min. I'll try a third time. Any suggestions as to what temperature and for how long?

I have been playing around with it in the sun. (I don't have a UV light source yet...) and it cures extremely fast. I would say that a thin layer will cure in about a minute. I was experimenting to see if I could partially cure it with UV, and then finish curing it with the pad pattern on, but with the quick curing time, it's hard to judge where the partially cured threshold is.

I also don't have a silk screen frame. I'm willing to go that route if I must. But is seems like a lot of work to use a screen to spread the ink for just a very small runs. especially when you consider cleanup time for the screen. And if I go that route, I'm tempted to just print the mask with the screen. Ultimately that will give the nicest result...again, it's comes down to clean-up time though. I guess the advantage of using a blank screen is that you can use one screen for all your projects. Hmmm...have to give this more thought.

If anyone else has experience with what I'm going through here, please let me know, or point me to a past thread that might help.