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

Hi Mark
Very good write up on your modification of the LexMark 260

The last communication we had was about the maximum carrier thickness
plus PCB thickness.
I was running a 0.062 PCB without a carrier and the printing was
stopping at about half way through. That was caused by the PCB being too
short and the ground pulling off the PCB as it was half way through the
printer. Putting the PCB on a 0.010 card stock carrier that was about 12
inches long cleared that up. (using a small wire soldered to the PCB and
attached to some copper tape at the trailing end of the carrier. then a
paper clip connection to ground.)

Today I preformed an experiment to determine the MAX thickness that
would go through the printer. I took a stack of 0.012 card stock sheets
and stacked them to make an overall thickness of about 0.062 inches. I
didn't include a PCB ... just printed on the card stock.
0.062 ... ok
0.074 ... ok
0.086 ... ok
0.098 ... jammed
so it looks like a carrier plus PCB thickness of 0.086 is my limit.
Also your extra effort to remove the paper platform is neccessary for
thicker PCBs.

Note: the paper platform has not been removed in my modification but the
"ribs" and "bumps" on the paper platform has been shaved off using a
sharp chisel.

Jim KI6MZ