--- In
Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com, "Dave Mucha" <dave_mucha@y...>
wrote:
...
>
> Check out the photos section, Daves Drill. the third picture.
>
> Imagine if you wanted to remove all the copper with a mechanical
> etcher. It would take hours and probably destroy the cutter in short
> order.
>
> I get boards by mechanically etching the outlines and then pealing
> the excess copper.
>
> The board in the foreground is partially pealed.
>
> Imagine trying to only solder the pads around the excess copper.
>
> This is the largest drawback with using mechanical etchers.
>
> Dave
I understand that. If it were me, I'd look to make the excess copper
a ground plane. You should be able to make thermals around pads and
vias in the "excess" areas so soldering isn't hard. Eagle does this
pretty well but i don't know your layout sw.
With chemical etching, I try to minimize the amount of copper removal
so I use a similar process. Start with the entire board as a ground
plane. Route and set isolation to 24 mils. That leaves a lot of
copper ground plane and extends my etchant by minimizing copper
removed. I will sometimes drop a via to the ground plane on the other
side to preserve an otherwise unconnected area (which eagle would remove).
I guess my high order bit here is having copper that wont peel off
when soldering but followed very closely by having lots of ground
plane to keep the board quiet.