Homebrew PCBs

On Wed, Jan 26, 2011 at 1:41 PM, Nathan House
<nathanhooyagroups@...> wrote:
>>Just tried the brushing-with-sponge technique, with excellent results.
>
> Well, maybe I should give ferric chloride a try then. It would avoid the
> rust problem which I only recently learned about, is probably safer to use
> (there aren't any fumes with ferric chloride, correct?). Do you just wash
> off the sponge in the sink afterwords?

I did the etching while holding the board above or in a plastic
dishwashing basin. I had a 1-liter glass beaker filled with water
which I used to rinse off the board a couple times to get a better
look at the etching progress, and then in the end to rinse out the
sponge and gloves. Then carefully poured the contaminated water down
the drain, rinsed out the dishwashing basin and poured that water
carefully down the drain, then not-so-carefully rinsed everything
again in the laundry sink. I could probably do that hundreds of times
without staining anything. It was less mess than I expected, really
not much mess at all.

I noticed some fumes from the FeCl3 when I heated it in an open
beaker, but didn't notice any fumes at all when using it cold. (Not
that I put my nose close to the opening of the bottle... :-)

Cheers,
- Jan