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What I’ve got seems to work fairly well – I think the only area I’m suffering is not understanding the process, and the relationship between the vinegar and salt and the peroxide. Today I put in a full 500ml bottle of peroxide and then dumped what was left of my cleaning vinegar in – I think it was close but not quite 1:1.. and that mixture went crazy on the board and did a perfect job. However, the board I put in was half the size of the previous.. so maybe the amount of copper present has an impact also. I put a bit of salt in and it just fizzed and fizzed away.
Without a doubt it works.. the goal here was a) to be safer and b) avoid relying on things that are difficult or impossible to by in my silly small town.
Another thing I found helps per Quinn’s site is the foam brush on the board while it’s in the bath.
Side note: I’m glad I didn’t go with those $400 custom made PCBs I was thinking about.. I dissolved a piece of their sample in my etchant and the green of the fiber was nowhere near what it looked like in pictures. In fact, these cheapo Chinese boards were far closer.
Brad
From: Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com [mailto:Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com]
Sent: Sunday, June 19, 2016 12:31 PM
To: Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [Homebrew_PCBs] Etching with vinegar, peroxide and salt
Have you thought about using acetic acid ? isn’t that what vinegar actually is ?
I have glacial acetic here ,it is used for darkroom work. Stop bath is basically the same thing except it has indicator in it so you know when it goes bad I used to stick my fingers in it all the time when printing photo’s . it freezes at about 62 degrees I think ,so watch where you store it. The glacial you can water down to whatever strength you need ,stop bath you also water down. It comes in a small plastic bottle and you add a certain amount to like a half gallon of water . think the mix is only a couple ounces to half a gallon!
From: Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com [mailto:Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com]
Sent: Sunday, June 19, 2016 12:58 PM
To: Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [Homebrew_PCBs] Etching with vinegar, peroxide and salt
Yeah. I just have a hesitancy about muriatic, remembering some accidental burns years ago. J I accidentaly splashed a bit of this vinegar stuff on my hand in a moment where I forgot to put on gloves and nothing happened. That kind of thing with muriatic would be very bad. It etches beautifully – just really slow.
From: Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com [mailto:Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com]
Sent: Sunday, June 19, 2016 9:02 AM
To: Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [Homebrew_PCBs] Etching with vinegar, peroxide and salt
One explanation I was given is that the vinegar reacts with the chloride in salt and produces a very weak hydrochloric acid. I tried it but it took forever to see any effect on the copper. Much easier to go and get a gallon of muriatic acid for $10. I only use about an ounce at a time along with 3 oz of peroxide and get boards etched in about 5 minutes.