Homebrew_PCBs

Hi Stefan

>nice station.

Thank you. I'm in the process of doing some small changes and hope to
plate through the first PCB tomorrow. What I change is the voltage
regulator aparently get's too hot with slow PCB motor motion and
filled tanks with the biggest PCB inserted. I therefore will move it
from the copper side of the PCB holding the electronics to the other
side and add a reall cooler to it. The other "change" is that I havent
made the tank covers yet. Since I must adapt their size to the tanks
this is easier as long as they are not filled. Then John sugested to
me to also create a second fork made of plastics for the four smaller
tanks (those withouth the electrolytic). Like this there is no danger
to contaminate the paladium bath which is the most critical one.

>i have the following question:
>
>i don't know much about through hole plating but don't you have to rinse the
>board after each chemical?
>i wonder how you do this in this unit, do you have water compartments
>between the process chemicals (or at least one?)
>how do you change the water, how is it disposal handeled? (is the amount
>small enough to put it into the sink?)

Yes, you are right. I considered adding a rinse tank but then decided
against it. The way my station is made allows to change tanks etc. by
just creating a new main frame set. The main problem to me was adding
the jets with all that's needed (water pump, tanks to store used water
et all). Basically what I intend to do is to simply have a bucket full
of water beside the station and after diping the boards into it rinse
them in a regular wash bowl. If I were to copy Bungards wonderfull
station, it probably would have been easier to simply buy one (at EUR
8350 not really an option for me).

>the only pcb "station" i saw was a small unit of bungard, but only used for
>etching. it has nice flushing compartments which had small water jets on the
>sides... it kept the water fresh by using fresh water at the jets and
>disposing off excess.

The station I looked at is called "compacta 30". Again, this unit
can't really be compared to mine considering the price difference. I'm
really looking foreward to operate the station the first time. I will
post pictures of the first PCB's as soon as I have one.

>i think the bags for your electrodes are of the standard woven glass fiber
>material used for fiberglass parts (like making wings for smaller aeroplane
>etc.)
>i can't tell if it is one layer or more but i really think it is this stuff
>from the pictures.

That very well might be. I did not cared too much cause the bags come
along with the anodes which I bought there also.

>one can get this from supplies for making fiber reinforced plastics (planes,
>repair of car hull) but also as "fire extinguisher blanked" (is used in
>kitchen if fat burns). this is often quite a good quality and maybe easier and
>cheaper to get than the stuff used with epoxy.
>
>maybe this is of interest for the ones wanting to make such a unit.

Maybe. However, anodes used shold have some percentage of phosphor in
them (that's what I was told).

Again, my friend John experimented over a year long with different
setups etc. until he found out that the chemicals are the most
important part. What I'm trying to tell is that it's well worth to buy
a complete set of chemicals from Bungard. By doing so you get
chemicals that are guaranteed to work. The anodes are of course also
an important part of this and hence I decided not to experiment here.
The starting kit for the Compacta 30 is basically what I use and it's
available for ~EUR 650. If you consider that my station can be run for
almost four years with it it's not really that expensive. Then you
also must understand that I intend to get only between 50 to 100 PCB's
per year out of it. That said it does not have to be a machine
suitable for a board house or such. I mean this is for homebrew pcb's
:-))

>((what does bungard charge for the bags?))

The bags are not on the pricelist I have. The anodes WITH the bags are
EUR 99 with a 10% rebate.

Markus