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Subject: Re: [Homebrew_PCBs] Laser printing Aluminium Foil - It works !!???!!??!

From: Brian Pitt <bfp@...>
Date: 2004-02-27

that was printed from a PDF of the GameBoy PIO cartridge here
http://marc.rawer.de/Gameboy/ top layer

I ran it with just the default settings on a HP LJ1200 from a cold start
the copper foil is a strip of 1.25" wide slug and snail tape from
the lawn and garden dept. ,for some reason slugs wont crawl over
copper but they love aluminum especially if its a beer can
(mmmmm... beer :)
once it was on the paper I gave it a scrub with a scotchbrite pad
to rough it up a bit to hold the toner and gave it a swipe with acetone
to clean off any oil

offhand I'm thinking something smaller might work better
maybe the Pic sip from the Eagle single sided tutorial or a
basic stamp clone or SIMM Stick format board ,something like that

or it might just take a tew tweaks to the settings like you say
I was thinking of puting the tape on a transparency sheet to make
a sort of home brew flex circuit

Brian
--
"Nemo me impune lacesset"

> Still, that is impressively good for just a simple straight shot at it.
> Solid prints should be well within striking distance with a little work
> from that good of a starting point.
>
> I'm still thinking an oxide layer would be the best thing to try.
> Simple to make, less conductive, tend to be more 'sticky' than bare metal,
> and unlike most coatings etc the copper oxide will still etch easily. Just
> the brown like old PCB or a penny not the true green stuff of course..
>
> And that turned out way better than I'd have expected for just bare
> copper, all things considered. Looks like print density might even fix it,
> I'm assuming you had the 'Black' checked off in Eagle but make sure it's
> also set highest in your print driver too, some will interfere. We're
> going to be screwing up the printers for normal use anyway, even if it took
> a simple mod to make the printer print 'super black' beyond what it's
> normal settings could do it'd still be well worth it. I'll take a look at
> what that takes, I've always assumed it's just higher charging voltage to
> attract more toner etc but could be done in other ways. It may just be a
> set charging voltage then the laser just partially discharges even the
> black areas too. Simply upping the high voltage a bit may be all it takes.
>
> Alan