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

I started out using magazine paper. It has the nice property that it
doesn't leave a lot of residue. However, because of the coatings,
excess toner has no where to go and squeezes out between the paper
and copper. I was winding up with blotchy traces. I've heard this
called "toner crush". I spent a lot of time playing with different
pressures and amount of toner (darkness setting on my copier) to only
moderate effect.

Then I tried a good quality of inkjet paper and will never use
magazine paper again. It works great, is cheap and, best of all,
excess toner gets absorbed by the paper. My traces are quite
straight and edges are crisp. It seems to need a higher heat setting
than magazine paper but you can apply a LOT of pressure and get good
adhesion of toner to copper. One thing I do that seems to make the
toner stick better is turn the iron off and leave it on the
board/paper assembly until cooled down below the fusing temperature.

There are several inkjet papers that will work in the database.

Phil