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

previous by date index next by date
previous in topic topic list next in topic

Subject: Re: Adapting solder resist application to TT method

From: alan00463@...
Date: 2014-10-12

Suspecting nail polish might come in green, in blue, and in purple, I googled "nail polish as solder mask".    I found one bloke who  claimed to have used enamel nail polish as a homebrew PCB solder mask.    He said to use enamel, but not acrylic.

I had nail polish leftover from another project.    So I looked and found neither word printed on the bottle.    I tried it anyway.     I coated it on the edge of an old PCB.   When it was dry, I verified the polish is an electrical insulator.   

I repeated the experiment with a new green bottle of nail polish with "enamel" on the label.      It looked great the next morning.    I verified with my multimeter that it is also an insulator.  

However, I was able to scratch away both types of nail polish with my fingernail, so that would not make a good soldermask.    I will try overlaying the nail polish with clear coats -- clear nail polish, lacquer, polyurethane ? -- and see if anything works.     If I can get something to work, I'll report my combination.   Now that cold weather has arrived in the lower 48, I am going to try to avoid any liquid that is sprayed.

I also ran across a dry film solder mask vendor http://www.soldermask.com/dfsm.html
but haven't yet explored how this works.