Homebrew PCBs

What led to the failures?

I'm a novice at home PCB etching but had very good success with 
photo-transfer.

I purchased pre-sensitized PCB's then printed my PCB designs on an 
Epson inkjet printer and high quality transparency film. The quality 
was superb. Doing this I was able to make double sided boards 
without too much hassle. The pre-sensitized boards were about $25 
per square foot, I think.

I compared this to printing the designs on a laser printers (I tried 
two different lasers) and neither of the lasers had accurate 
reproductions. The material didn't feed consistently and the 
magnification wasn't exactly 100%. The inkjet on the other hand was 
super accurate, beyond my capacity to measure.

The main thing I had to do was get high quality inkjet transparency 
film and print in highest quality mode. 

The film I used was Pictorico premium OHP transparency film. The 
quality is absolutely perfect on this film, much better than the 3m 
and Apolo films I tried which don't seem to take the ink very well.

The other thing that was important was to print the images mirrored, 
so that I could put the printed side of the material in direct 
contact with the board. If you print normally, then the light has to 
go through the transparency material after striking the printed 
pattern, and then it gets blurry by the time it reaches the board. 
This is key for sharp lines. Plus of course the glass on top to keep 
things flat.

good luck.
-Ted

--- In Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com, "Salam <salamgobran@h...>" 
<salamgobran@h...> wrote:
> what is the best way to produce a PCB out of a layout on the PC at 
> home ?? i tried  a lot and failed a lot