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

SUCESS!

Yesterday I gave a try on ppdeayal method of thermal transfer.

Got an old Toshiba Pagemaster printer, dismanteled and got the entire
fuser assembly and gear unit. Built it onto a board of wood and a small
circuit to drive the step motor. In my first try, I got so much sucess I'm
really amazed. Here is how it happened:

- Got a Couche paper (time magazine, in Brazil we have "Veja") sheet and
glued it with double sided tape into an A4 sheet. My HP Laserjet 4 plus
cannot feed a paper so thin, so I used the A4 sheet as a carrier.

- Printed the circuit in the darkest mode possible

- Warmed the fuser unit, monitoring temperature in the thermistor (The
IDEAL temperature of the fuser unit is between 190 and 210 degrees. In HP
printers the Thermal Fuse opens in 210 degrees celsius, so keep this
temperature lower!)

- Put the board + paper sandwich in the fuser unit, and ran 4 times in
each direction (my PC program allows me to do that automatically, so I don't
need to take the board from one side to re-insert in the other side of the
laminator)

- Took the board off, and put it on the cold water bath

- The board came WONDERFULLY TRANSFERED. Wow!

My DOs and DON'Ts:

- Fuser units that has plastic bearings on the fuser roller sides are
complicated to work. Mine melted the plastic 2 times while I was looking for
the maximum temperature I can use.
- If you have money for a commercial laminator unit, go for it!
- The board has to be completely clean, of course
- In high temperatures (as you can see in the photos I put on the site)
the ink of the magazine can be transfered to the board. Use a clean sheet of
couche paper, or if you can, the lighest printed page you can find on the
magazine.
- The "secret secret" of the thermal transfer isn't really TEMPERATURE
but EVEN PRESSURE.

Greetz for all!
Alexandre Souza



---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
Version: 6.0.699 / Virus Database: 456 - Release Date: 05/06/04