Homebrew PCBs

Sometimes I will use one on small boards. I place the board and etchant in a 
small glass/ceramic container, put some water in the cleaner, then set the 
container in that. The one that I use also has a heating element, I use 
Ferric Chloride etchant (yes, the ugly brown stuff that stains everything), 
and the boards are usually done in about 2 minutes. With this same etchant, 
with the boards just sitting there (as I must do for larger boards) it takes 
about 1/2 an hour to 45 min per double sided board. (currently all my raw 
board, except the paper thin stuff is double sided.)
On Thursday 16 November 2006 15:20, lwr20 wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Since most things have been tried at some stage by various people in the
> group, I was wondering if anyone had tried speeding up PCB etching by
> making/adapting an 'ultrasonic cleaning tank'.
>
> This
> <http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=97187&&source=14&doy=16m11\
>
> >  sort of thing.  This particular one wouldn't be suitable because of
>
> the stainless steel tank (etchant attacks this, right?), but there must
> be a plastic one available somewhere...
>
> I can think of all sorts of reasons why this might not work (nasty
> etchant vapours produced, breakdown of etchant, removal of etch-resist,
> etc.) but until someone tries it we'll never know :)
>
> Since these machines are used for cleaning jewellery, removing
> grease/oil, rust, etc. maybe these things are useful for easy cleaning
> of PCBs prior to TT or some other masking method?
>
> Lance.
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]