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

howdy guys!

I've been a member here for many years, reading the digests with
interest as they come in....yet I haven't posted much because I've been
out of the elex-design work that I did as a career. But I've just been
'shanghai-ed' out of retirement to supply 'power and analog' expertise
to an Alternative-Energy project hereabouts....so I find myself needing
the ability again to make one-off PCB's on a regular basis.

During my active career, I built a 21-tank Riston/Palladium PTH setup
for my firm...and got us into an early LPKF machine...but I don't have
either of those now (BIG sigh!). So I do know PCB-technology fairly
well, and I've done manual and CNC machining...but I've never done
boards by toner-transfer or inkjet-printer method.

Since time is of the essence, I need to forego the
Epson-modification-learning-curve myself (even as much fun as it'd
be!). Learning of, then sourcing, the right printer...finding one in
good shape...cutting the right holes in the right places...bending
this...twitching that... :) I need to be up and running and making
boards. And sadly, I don't have a good shop setup any more...only a
kitchen-counter space in the little cabin here. By the way, our home is
in Oregon....we live off-grid in the mountains of the southwest part of
the state.

The bottom-line is that I need a good guy to sell me an Epson Artisan or
R200 series printer that's "ready to go" in both hardware and software.

That is to say, a good-condition printer that's fully and properly
modified for PCB work; accepting standard .062" FR4 stock (to 8x10" I
believe?), ready to make boards 'out of the box'. With the correct
windows-based drivers/utilities to make the process simple and
smooth...such as automatically removing the dithering, providing for
quick/easy adjustment of X and Y scaling, etc., etc..

And to also work with the CD-tray as well, if that's possible on a
modified printer (?). It looks like the tray could give decent
top-bottom registration and repeatability every time without any
futzing...if the tray 'carrier' is implemented well. Many of these
AE-project boards will fit within that 3x5" constraint. If need be, I
can cut such a precise carrier myself on my little Techno CNC.

I'd prefer the most 'robust' and largest-format model, of this Epson
piezo-type R-series that folks seem to have settled on. I recall
reading somewhere that one R-model even has adjustable head-height...so
it can be set anywhere between.062" FR4 and paper-thin stainless foil,
with just a software command...no disassembly and.putzing. If that's
correct, it'd be the best choice for my needs, for sure, if there aren't
any tradeoffs in other areas.

I'm hoping that someone who does a truly good job...nice precision
work...will contact me. Consistent alignment of the board to the
print-axes, with repeatability over multiple insertions, and
consistently good top-to-bottom registration without endless futzing,
are important to this project that I'm helping out on.

Good work is certainly worth something...and I will gladly pay cash.
Yet I'll mention that an economical price is kind of an important
consideration also...since we're living from savings, and I'm currently
not getting paid at all for this Alt-Energy work. Note that if you
enjoy barter instead of cash, I have some 'classic era' Tek/HP/etc
test-equipment stored away (7000-series plugins, TM500 stuff, HP 43x
power-meters, etc. etc.) that I could trade.

Top-Bottom Registration: In the "Epson conversion" info that I've
studied so far (massmind site, fullspectrum site, these digests of our
group), I've not seen mention of hassle-free precision
registration....only putzing with the board by eye for the 2nd side.
I'm leery of registering from the board edges on a flip-over, since
sheared board-blanks aren't precise in their dimensions (and often not
even 'square' X-to-Y).

I've always used a pair of punched .125" holes on dowel-pins, centered
along left and right edges and flipped it over on those pins (defined as
'center' zero in the CAD)....that mirrors/registers perfectly...but pins
don't look all that easy to implement on a moving-part platform vs. a
moving-tool platform... :)

I'd be interested in hearing what others have done with registration-pin
type systems...or some kind of printer-in-the-loop optical-feedback
auto-reg-to-features process...or...???

In any case, if the only practical method right now is 'registering' the
leading-edge via paper-sensors, I can make my board-blanks square and
dimensionally-accurate via CNC-routing all 4 edges if I have to.

fyi, I'll be doing mainly 2-side 2-oz power-elex; with some uC/analog
boards, and the odd flex-circuit, chem-milling, and spray-deposition
project mixed in as well. Since the non-power boards will incorporate
some SMT, I'd really like 6-7 mil trace/space on 1oz consistently. But
I can live with 8-9 mil that prints right every time, if that's the true
'reality' for these printers.

Drivers/utilities needed-- I use industry-standard Gerber and Excellon
production-PCB dataflow from windows. Currently running Proteus7 on
XP. I'm also foreseeing a need to fab several old designs from my
ancient DOS PCAD-4.55 (oops...did I just date myself?...lol). It seems
that a good robust analog gen-field controller or instrumentation-amp
never goes 'out of style'...unlike what the digital-world does to us so
often!

PS- for the chem-milling, it'd be -very- good to be able to print from
Postscript and HPGL output with all the same de-dithering and scaling
etc. facilities used for the PCB/Gerber files.

So...if you've done such Epson-conversions, and truly do it "right and
tight"....please do contact me!

with my thanks,

Ricardo
metal shift-2 fullwave dawt kom

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