David,
I have dabbled in this area for a few months but did not achieve your level
of success. I plan to give your procedure a try.
You talk about printing to wax paper. I've had good luck with parchment
paper taped down on regular paper. Do you have any experience with it?
I also plan to try to use thin sheets of copper rather than circuit board.
My goal is making nice labels and scales. If I pre-drill the mounting holes,
they can be used to align the artwork.
I already have pretreated circuit board material for my electronics work.
Drill the holes is the mind numbing part of the job. I built a stand for my
Dremel which has a very short throw. In this way a quick flip of the handle
drives the cutter through the material and back out in less than a second.
The small clearance also minimizes parallax.
Thanks for the gift of knowledge!
Rick
-----Original Message-----
From:
Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com [mailto:
Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com]
On Behalf Of David
Sent: Friday, July 26, 2013 10:37 PM
To:
Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.comSubject: [Homebrew_PCBs] Easy Fast Laser Print DIY Circuit Boards
Hi
Thought I would share my way of making cheap DIY PCBs to you folk, been
doing it this way since the early 70s after endless experiments.
1ST Design your layout, I normally use Sprint because of its ease of use,
you can covert your circuit diagram to BMP then use it as a transparency
under lay for your track pcb layout.
Once you have accomplished that you can print direct from your lay files.
2nd Paper types, In the early days I used same as allot of you on here old
glossy mags, the draw back is to hit and miss and hassle of cleaning paper
off.
The best most effective way is to use wax based paper, by using this you
just peel it off the copper and job done, you will find all plastic ink is
where you want it on the copper laminate, the paper you originally printed
on will be spotless as if it had never been printed on in the first place.
The next best paper if you have no wax paper is ordinary thin old Fax paper,
the type that was on rolls, you will need to run under water to get paper
off but where its so thin it only takes a few minutes.
Procedure : Print your lay file to paper with laser printer set at best
settings, then print to your wax based paper.
Sand your pre cut copper laminate with very fine wet and dry under running
warm/hot tap water with circular motion making sure all copper clad is
spotless with a nice shinny surface, At this point Its paramount you do not
touch copper clad, wipe with kitchen towel to dry.
Now cut your lay file from the paper leaving a extra half inch all round.
Lay the laminate carefully holding by edges as you would a dvd or ic,
copper side down on top of your printed lay file.
Use the half inch extra to fold tightly round back end of laminate creating
lips which you need to tape down with paper tape.
Once that done run through ordinary Laminator 10 times.
I used to use ordinary house hold iron but there are to many hit and misses,
temperatures variants from one iron to the next the thermostats in them are
very primitive which can easily damage the PCB surface due to amount of
heat.
Using a Laminator as described will give enough heat to easily melt the
laser compound but enough to damage copper clad surface.
Now this part is also very important, once you have run the laminate through
for the 10th time you need to cool it off quickly so just put it in the
freezer for 30 mins which fits the bill nicely.
After the 30 minutes take out of freezer, unwrap, providing you have
followed my procedure the paper will just fall away leaving a nice covering
on the copper and nothing on the paper.
Now clean with warm water, nothing abrasive The whole job from start to
finish including etching if your organised should take about 1 hour for a
board say 95x100mm.
While the board is in the freezer if using granules as I do you can mix with
water in piyrex dish heat with gun which i normally direct onto the surface
of the mix, not the dish because you only need it warm.
The etching procedure should take no longer than 15 minutes, if it takes
much longer by getting the wrong mix you will end up with a pitted surface.
You will always get 100% success providing you follow my instructions to the
book, remember copper surface needs to be totally clean of grease which
includes your finger prints throughout procedure, Temperature of
transferring lay files, to much heat or not enough heat will give same
symptoms, Etching, get the right mix keep warm,Glide PCB through solution
keeping it on the move, it needs to be in and out of solution fast as
possible otherwise you loose print or at best get pitting on track surface.
Actually the most boring and time consuming part of making a successful PCB
is drilling the holes, even though I have a pillar drill its still a pain,
worse if your getting on in the years like me, and eyes not as good as they
used to be.
Anyway hope this is of some help
Regards
Dave
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