Homebrew PCBs

Have you tried ramping up the temp to 220C to see if the paint can withstand reflow temperatures?

I have moved away from PTH design and onto SMT only and have had difficulty with paints, toners and reflowing. I use the pulsonix transfer setup and it works great but if you use toner as a soldermask or even as a component layer it melts/burns and can run into solder joints and ruin things. Hopefully this paint will stay in place and not liquefy.

I'm planning on going out to grab some in a few hours and do some testing this weekend with fully fabbed boards and liquid tin at the end.

Anyone know of a cheap way to make an airbrush? I don't have a compressor but I did find a $26 airbrush that might work:

http://www.kmstools.com/badger-model-250-airbrush-set-73



--- In Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com, Tolga Abaci <tolga.abaci@...> wrote:
>
> I am not sure if the paint would work in an inkjet head. It is water-based,
> I guess that's good. On the other hand, it's quite thick. Maybe if it's
> thinned enough and printed in several layers it would work. You need to have
> a fairly thick layer of this paint to get it work well as a soldermask.
> 
> For me, this method was quite attractive for two reasons: First, the paint
> is cheap and available everywhere. Second, I already got the toner transfer
> process working well, and this is quite compatible with it, it was a mere
> extension.
> 
> Right now, it looks like curing the paint in two steps is the key... The
> first cure (low temp - 120C) gets the paint strong enough to resist solvent,
> but not too resistant so that the solvent would remove only the toner-masked
> areas. The second cure (high temp - 160C) really fixes the paint in place
> and makes it solvent resistant.
>