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

Get that printer back off the grandkids: http://www.instructables.com/id/Modification-of-the-Pantum-2502W-for-Direct-Laser-/

Tony

YES... Mark Lerman is the pointman here.
BUT
AMAZON will sell you a LEXMARK E260D for $450
which is not the kind of money I spend on something I am going to chop apart for a hobby hack.

I'm futzing with toner transfer for hobby electronics.... ham radio....and.. this kitchen etching  is new to me.
So when I found that I could use my laminator instead of a clothes iron I went down that path
and melted the gear .....
which then had me looking into how to get around this plastic gear problem.

I did by taking the motor and laminator temperature hack OUT of the equation all together
by using heavy metal that I already had here:
http://www.learnmorsecode.com/laminator/hotcakes.html

The TONER REACTIVE FOIL futzing is just some more education about the available methods to get great
results WITHOUT buying any specialty products.

I'm just totally sick of getting mugged by technology.
I walked into Walmart with my grandchildren to buy a laser printer FOR THEM  and found nothing less than $100 while at the same time knowing I bought my PANTUM online..delivered in two days from NJ...for $34. The idea was to have the kids draw the artwork and then use that artwork to make pad printing
plates.... lithography craftwork.


So when 
  http://www.pcbfx.com/main_site/pages/products/toner_foils.html
wants to sell 15 feet of GREEN TRF for $9
I have to ask the question "WHAT IS green TRF made of ?"
and more importantly... how the hell does TRF do this magical melt under heat but only stick to toner?

So stumbling around the craft TRF users and their videos I sort of figured this could be the same stuff....
and readily available for less money from craft sources.

And the TRF is good for all sorts of craftiness... on the top of the PCB too.
 


Aug 13, 2014 - Mark Lerman has pioneered this method with his conversion of a ... of his conversion of a Lexmark E260 for direct laser printing to PCB stock.

 

Mark Lerman did the DLP, I figure if you're going to futz about rebuilding a laminator with custom gearing and then futz about even more adding foil and then futz about touching up the pinholes in that, you might as well hack a $50 printer in the first place.

You can't use a fuser from a laser printer because the rollers aren't far enough apart to allow for a PCB, and can't easily be adjusted.

However if you're set on modifying a laminator, modifying a fuser would be less work - the parts are already rated to handle the heat.

Note that Lerman's DLP method doesn't use the fuser anyway, the toner on the copper board needs to be fused after printing. Someone figured out suspending it above some acetone will cause the acetone vapours to fuse the toner after a few minutes, at which point you're ready to etch.

Tony