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

previous by date index next by date
previous in topic topic list next in topic

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

From: Alan King <alan@...>
Date: 2004-02-28

Stefan Trethan wrote:
> agree completely.
> how about a blade of ESD plastic brushing over the pcb?
> i don't quite remember the resistance but maybe it is reasonably low.
> otherwise a simple resistor will do.
>
> ST

Yep I was thinking resistor but the plastic or foam would be perfect, and
lots easier to come by than resistors of the right values and voltages. It's
large ohms per square inch, but should still charge up to a floating voltage
with no problems. Should be exactly what's called for, and nothing more needed
than a piece of HV wire stuck in it and taken down to the corona wire. Most
conductive foam I know of is in the megaohm per inch range so should work well,
assume the other anti-static plastics are too.
I'm still halfway expecting my printer to blow up since this is so
non-standard, but so far now this really shouldn't be a big deal over what's
normally going on with the sheet of paper. I've got to pull down the older
lasers I have just to see if the paths are any straighter though, I'll feel
better about the experimenting with something I don't print with much. Actually
I have a 1200 DPI older laser in the attic too, got it for $5 at the local
hamfest since it was so heavy and gives an error code. Never even really looked
at it though, only got it because I know the drums cost hundreds for it, but
never sold it off. Time to take a look I think..

Alan