Homebrew PCBs

--- "Herbert E. Plett" <cachureos@...> wrote:

> 
> 
> --- Hector Garcia <hectorogarcia@...> wrote:
> ...
> > And, carefully melt them with your FeCl. First the
> HCL and later the H2O2
> > 
> >
>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrochloric_acid_regeneration
> > 
> > Here is the detailed info, but, it's in spanish :P
> >
>
http://www.xbot.es/webs/robotika/tutoriales.htm#regenerar
> 
> as previously discussed, that's NOT regeneration,
> it's creating CuCl etchant on
> top of the dirty exhausted FeCl.
> 
> if you want to use CuCl then use it 'pure' (clear
> and not staining) !!
> 

If you can get a sufficient quantity of solid CuCl to
start with it's of course easier. Making it up from
oxygenated HCl and scrap copper is another possibility
but takes quite a bit of time.

I ended up converting from FeCl to CuCl quite without
realizing it. Kept the FeCl in a half-filled two litre
PET bottle (lots of air) and added a dab of HCl after
using it. Since at the time I made less than a board a
month the air had a lot of time to react. After a
while I noticed it worked fine without shaking up the
brown stuff on the bottom.

After a prolonged pause the sludge had all but
solidified so I decanted it, washed the bottle and put
it back in. Another couple of cycles made it quite
clear. The bottle can't be completely cleaned as the
rust gets into the pores in the plastic, but hey, it's
discardable.

I did wonder about the change in color, the lore at
the time was that it was a sign of exhaustion but
still it seemed to work even better than when new.

That's about when I started researching on PCB etching
and after a while I realized what was going on.

I'm taking better care of it now, and with about one
board a week it's going fine.

- YD.


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