Alright, call me crazy, but an idea just occurred to me, and I can't see why it can't work. To me, the most difficult (expensive, complicated, unreliable, etc) part of creating a PCB is getting the pattern laid out on the board so it can be exposed, etc. The rest is science ... standard procedure, standards times, standard results. Yes, laying out the pattern can be science, but at a higher price, and still takes time to line up the image transparencies, etc. So this idea just randomly came to me ... why not use a projector to project the image on the board. Use a positive-coated board and an XGA LCD projector, with a UV bulb instead of the usual bulb. I get quite good results at 300dpi, so if we go with a projector resolution of 1024x768 for now, that's about 3.4" x 2.5". There may need to be some optical manipulation done to get it to focus clearly at that distance, and a bunch of other little things sorted out (such as calibration for non-linear/inconsistent pixel spread), but I can't see why it can't work. No, it's not cheap, but I believe it would be really fast, going from computer straight to PCB. Maybe this has been thought of or done already? Or maybe I'm going off the deep end? Cheers, -Neil.
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I have a dream...
2003-05-23 by Neil
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