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

I ran out of my office depot inkjet paper so I bought a box of Georgia
Pacific Image Plus+ Ink Jet (the redundant + is no typo) and gave it a
try for TT. I was happy to see that it worked with my old process
(transfer, soak, rub). In fact, it seemed to be letting go of the
toner pretty easily and leaving a lot less residue. So, I tried an
experiment to see how little soaking I could get away with. I briefly
wetted a fused board/paper assembly, wiped of the excess water and
then just pulled the paper off. Lo and behold, it pulled free with no
residue in about 75% of the areas. The paper clung in areas of denser
traces (like around surface mount ICs) and ground planes but even
those cleaned up quickly with a little rubbing. I'd say it took about
5 minutes from wetting the board to being ready to dry for etching.
Wow, that's an improvement. By the way, there was very little toner
on the paper. Much less than my previous paper.

Interestingly, the areas that didn't peel all the way were where the
paper ripped because it was wet. I was able to grab it and continue
the peel in a couple of places. I'm going to try a dry peel.

One other process note. When preparing the copper clad board for TT,
I just use 600 grit wet-or-dry sandpaper and wipe it down with acetone
on a paper towel. No oven drying. I've had zero problems with this
method.

Paper specifics: Georgia-Pacific Image Plus+ Ink Jet Paper. 94
brightness 24 lb weight. $18 for 5 reams (2500 sheets, all together)
at Sam's Club. Yes, that less than 3/4 of a penny per sheet. I added
it to the database.