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

Sorry for bursting your bubble but it is what it is and I am not
going to use a positive psychology of the type "the minute you say
something is not possible, so it becomes". It doesn't matter what I
am saying (at least it shouldn't) - I am just telling you: forget it
and do something else. Use a plotter and ink pen.

People print DNAs with inkjets. Commercial labs already figured out
how to print conductive ink. That has been figured out. Conductive
ink has already been even on the market until they removed it. Now
they also print passives, resistors and caps. The new frontier is to
print silicon so one can print his own transistors...10 years away?

I ruined 3 printers and I recovered one of them. The minute you
change the ink structure it will print, all right, but it will start
behaving differently on different surfaces. I discovered that my
thinned out floor wax (by the way that Future Floor Wax and for
youngsters it is an old company named 'Future' that made that
fabulous gloss layering liquid that cannot be bought at Home Depot-
only small and old time ACE type places) so the remnants of that
Future Wax diluted the ink enough to make it out of focus on paper...

It's a whole new hobby, I spent a month, my buddy is still pushing
the subject but I am done with it and discourage anybody I can. What
works though, are the permanent ink pens in plotters. I tried it 2
years ago and got GREAT success. The problem was that the ink pen was
held with a duct tape and so it had tendency to fall off at the end
of the plot. Then the tip was rendered useless on complex boards
(flattened from smacking against the PCB) and 04mm at best (I got one
01 this week but haven't tried it yet). I also changed the plotter.

What also works is photography methd. The results I am getting on my
own emulsion make me think of etching silicon..

Most of the information on the subject on the web is deception and
false. You have to choose wisely and frankly, I venture to say that
100% on the subject is useless-you are on your own. Mike