You might want to try suspending the pcb in acetone vapor before etching.I don't use toner transfer, but I do use toner as a resist. If yoususpend it over acetone, in the vapor, the toner seems to"melt" and covers small pinholes. I usually leave it in thevapor for 20-30 minutes.
Mark
At 11:18 AM 6/13/2016, you wrote:
My problem isn't getting thetoner to transfer well, it's etching. Lots of pinholes. The toner is tooporous. I've tried the lighter fluid method of fixing the toner but noworkie. The foil method will probably work if I can get the stuff hotenough to transfer. I am using original HP toner. Any thoughts ?
Doug Forbes
From: Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com[Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com]
Sent: Sunday, June 12, 2016 5:41 PM
To: Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [Homebrew_PCBs] First attempt at toner transfer
Well, I tried the cold transfer method and
yeah.. no dice at all. Probably my mixture wasnâât working right.
Anyway, for sport, I went back to the process I had tried before. My PCB patterns are bigger than whatâs out there on youtube, and I hadbeen printing them on separate pieces of paper. This time, Iprinted them together on one piece of magazine paper from Hotrod Magazine(love that magazine). Then I cleaned the board, let the iron gethotter than the blue blazes of hll.. and then went for it. Spent agood 10 minutes really working the iron first back and forth nice anddslow like a laminator, then faster, on the theory it would keep the paperhot all the way around. I looked really closely and could kind ofsee where the toner was coming off the paper a little bit, and reallyworked the front end of the iron down on spots I thought weresuspect. Then I dunked the whole thing in a tub of cold water andlet it sit for 2 minutes. Anyway, voila! The result:
http://s1381.photobucket.com/user/unclefalter/media/20160612_172825_zpstl1dzy7q.jpg.html
So that disproves that my compatible toner wonât work.. at least forthe ironing process. Donât know if weâll have a problem when weetch? But yeah.. it looks really good, I think. I kind offigured the problem was âoperator errorâ here since 80%+ was comingoff on my previous tries.
Now that I sort of have a procedure that works I think Iâll keep at itand get my other patterns done. Lots of Hotrods lying around.J
Brad