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

Hi Everyone,

I have been thinking about this for a while and I haven't seen it mentioned
before.
There are many ways to get your idea to copper one I have not seen is
TraceTemplate(TT), for those who have a CNC machine such as Crankorgan, I am
still working on my second one.
Basically milling out the entire traces of the circuit in a TT and spraying
an etch resist on the pcb. The only thing is you will not have center hole
in your pads it will be solid copper unless you get very creative. You could
also make a second or third TraceTemplate for ground planes.

This only requires a few steps;
1. Draw the circuit (CAD,Eagle,ETC or by hand)
2. Transfer the drawing to G-code
3. Mill a TraceTemplate in plastic, PCB or whatever
4. Hold TT against the PCB (clamp together)
5. Spray with a Etch resist such as laquer,possibly paint
6. Etch
7. Remove the resist

The beauty of this is once you have done steps 1-3 all you have to do for
mass production is steps 4-7. Multiple boards can be sprayed at once.
2-layer boards would be easy with reference holes and you could spray both
sides at the same time. This is going to make it easy to make large
quantities of PCBs for very little money and it will come out the same every
time. Can't wait to start making my TraceTemplate.

Derek B.
High Tech Systems
Denver, Co.