Homebrew PCBs

HA, the open road!. its gold for prints, it beat cosmo, the foxtel
magazine, womens weekly, FHM and all the other titty mags i had lying
around. 

I thank the person who lived here before me for not getting their mail
redirected, thus giving me a stack of open road magazines and
therefore leaving me with a lifetimes worth of pcb print stock. 

Luc, out of curiosity, what laminator are you using and where did you
source it? would you recomend it?


--- In Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com, "Luc Small" <luc.small@...> wrote:
>
> Hello,
> 
> Many thanks to Chilliismyweakness and Myc for your very helpful
> replies. It's good to get confirmation that it's not just me that has
> problems with the Brother toner. It's also good to hear that the HP
> P1005 model works well.
> 
> As it should turn out, I opted to get a HP 1020 printer instead of the
> newer P1005 model. I found some testimonials on this list and/or on
> the web that the HP 1020 was good for toner transfer. Fortunately, a
> nearby Dick Smith Electronics had a couple left in stock for $59 each.
> The price was right, so I snapped one up.
> 
> Just as was the case for Chilliismyweakness, I enjoyed success on my
> very first try with the HP 1020. What a relief that was after
> countless tries with my Brother 2040 laser printer.
> 
> For what it's worth, I took the following steps:
> 
> 1. I printed my PCB design (using the HP 1020 printer) onto a piece of
> magazine paper. For the benefit of those reader's in NSW/ACT AU, I
> used the Open Road (the NRMA's newsletter). This is quite thin, shiny,
> smooth paper. I used sticky tape to affix the magazine paper to a
> standard piece of A4 paper. Only one piece of tape was required, along
> the leading edge of the magazine paper. I then printed on the A4
> paper/magazine as if it was an ordinary piece of paper.
> 
> 2. I cleaned my blank PCB very well using a scourer and some Jif.
> After rinsing the board clean, I cleaned it with a soft cloth and
> isopropyl alcohol. I then dried the board.
> 
> 3. I heated up my unmodified GBC Creative Laminator (also available
> from Dick Smith Electronics/F1424/$40). I then ran the blank PCB
> through it (copper-side up) to make sure it was really dry and to warm
> it up a bit (to help the toner 'take' quicker).
> 
> 4. I then put the printed PCB paper face down on the PCB and ran the
> board/paper copper-side up through the laminator. I repeated this 8
> times. By the second pass through the laminator, the toner was
> starting to fuse with the board (so the paper no longer moved or
> slipped).
> 
> 5. Finally, I put the board into lukewarm water. Very quickly the
> paper began to disintegrate. After 10 minutes of soaking, I rubbed off
> the paper with my fingers until the fused toner was visible.
> 
> The results were outstanding. The toner was really well fused to the
> board - indeed, I was surprised by just how resilient it was.
> 
> A couple refinements to the process have come to mind. I plan to try
> these out when I get the chance:
> 
> A. Experimenting with how many passes through the laminator are
> enough. Eight passes gets a little tedious, and who knows, 4 might do
> the trick. Determining the optimal number will require some trial and
> error and some patience.  (I might also modify the laminator to slow
> it down at some point, allowing the transfer to be done in a single
> pass).
> 
> B. Using a little Kapton tape to hold the pattern (magazine paper) in
> place on the blank PCB. This, in particular, would make feeding small
> boards through the laminator a lot easier. The Kapton tape should
> easily withstand the temperature of the laminator.
> 
> I hope this information proves helpful to someone, and many thanks
> again to those who replied to my original post.
> 
> Best wishes,
> 
> Luc
>