Homebrew PCBs

Well, there is not enough space between the drum and the Transfix 
Roller to pass a thick pcb. I would have to replace the cams that 
raise and lower the Transfix Roller with smaller ones to make it 
work. Coupled with all the other problems, I am not sure it is worth 
the effort.

Mark



At 05:48 PM 3/24/2011, you wrote:
>A couple of people on the list have mentioned using Xerox solid ink
>printers to make pcbs, so I thought I'd take a look. These machines
>print by depositing melted wax on a large rotating aluminum drum then
>rolling heated paper over the drum to transfer the image. This would
>seem ideal because the wax is an excellent etch resist so that you
>should be able to just print and etch. I bought a used Xerox Phaser
>8400 for $100 on ebay. My preliminary thoughts/observations:
>
>1 - These are big, heavy machines, 65# (30Kg). They take up a lot of space.
>2 - They take 20 minute or so to warm up and use (waste) a lot of ink
>when they start up.
>3 - There is an incredible amount of system and component checking
>during the warm up period.
>4 - There are a LOT of sensors, making it hard to force this machine
>to do things it wasn't designed to do.
>
>That said, one simple way to use them is to print on thin pcb board.
>I ran a piece of ss .009 mil board through and got an excellent print
>right off the bat. I could simply glue this to a thicker piece of FR4
>and I would have a very simple method of making pcbs. I haven't
>etched a board yet, but others have said this is no problem. Since I
>don't have a lot of this thin pcb material, I don't want to etch
>right now, but I'll let you know.
>
>After taking the paper path apart, I *think* I can straighten the
>path enough to run .062 board through, but I'm not 100% sure. There
>would certainly have to be a microprocessor to simulate a number of
>the sensors because there are quite a few paper sensors. In fact, the
>paper trays even have sensors that tell the printer how wide and how
>long the paper is as well as when the tray is empty! Another problem
>is that when the printer is first powered up it prints this very full
>page that must come from tray 2. Since the paper stops for awhile in
>the paper preheater before moving onward, the preheater (which has
>both entrance and exit sensors) has to be emulated in software.
>
>Other problems are that every 50 pages the transfer roller is oiled,
>and every time there is an error the printer prints 'Chase" pages to
>clean off the drum.
>
>Finally, there is the problem of preheating the board. A .062  pcb
>can fit through the preheater, but I have no idea whether it can heat
>the copper fast enough for the wax ink to transfer properly.
>
>Lots of engineering challenges. I have put a data logger on the
>relevant sensors and will now try to make the printer print with
>emulated sensors. If that works, I can then see if full thickness
>boards can pass. I'll let you know!
>
>Mark
>
>
>
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