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

Some time ago, I tried the blue "press-n-peel" transfer system with
limited success. Their press was also purchased and I think that was a
good idea. Just lately, more press-n-peel was ordered but it looks
thin, the coating was light and streaky and the hp-1300 printer must
have liked it a lot because it just ate this new stuff. I sent the rest
of it back.
Taking the advice of some members of this forum, a local printer gave
me some magazine paper. It's glossy on both sides, takes toner well and
comes off afterwards. He also said that ink-jet paper had a pitted
surface that takes ink in small puddles but will put small holes in
toner. Could be.
One of the first problems that I ran across with this paper was a
close but not exact alignment between the top and bottom sheets on a
light table. They should align exactly since they came from the same
drawing, just different layers. I use Canvas 9.
Next came time and temperature in the press:
At 350 degrees and 45 seconds, toner runs like water. HOT = wavy edges
to lines.
It had slightly better line definition, i.e. straighter edges to the
lines, at 250 degrees for 5 minutes. It got even better at 200 degrees
for 5 minutes. Next, I'll try a lower temperature but there're no
markings on the press below 200 degrees. I put a piece of thin double
sided PC board in the press to act as a bottom plate. The work is put
between this and the press's hot plate. So far, no differences have
shown up between the (work) PC board's two sides.
Toner transfer here (200) was virtually complete. Some holes appeared
but that's more likely due to board cleaning faults. Thanks for the tip
on using a rag instead of paper towels too! I'm getting closer but we
all seem to know that we won't get the best results until we've seen
every possible fault first.
Please keep posting. Even a one liner can save hours of otherwise
wasted time.
Thanks to all,
TM