Yahoo Groups archive

Homebrew PCBs

Index last updated: 2026-04-28 23:05 UTC

Message

Re: [Homebrew_PCBs] Re: Etching - thoughts and a respect for chemicals.

2004-01-17 by Stefan Trethan

well, i use the method myself, and as it was already written
it is not dangerous at all if you take care.

I store the bottle of HCL and the bottle of H2O2 (bot 35% 1 liter plastic)
in the same room where my tools are. No corrosion problems.
the ONLY problem i ever had was forgetting a jar filled with some etchant.
This vaporized and when i came back a lot of drills and other nearby tools 
were
corroded.

The used Etchant i stored, also for years, in a glass bottle with a lid 
which has a 1mm hole in the top.
(because i wanted to release the h2o2 pressure).
My new etching jar will only be a tupperware container and the lid of this 
is also enough to prevent
any corrosion.


You see, no problems at all with the stuff on this site...
The bottles i use are the "standard" from my chemists shop,
Poly Ethylene with a red "child safe" cap (the one you need to press
down to unscrew). the cap has such a soft, "foam plastic" seal in it.
They are absolutely airtight.

Only the HCl Bottle shows salt on the outside, which seems to come through 
the
PE. it is not much and i have placed it in a sleeve of another bottle
(only because i don't want to touch this salt every time).



I add the H2O2 to the etchant (which seems to be the easiest way)
and never have seen any splashing at all.


If you use the correct concentrations this is a very kind and forgiving 
etchant,
and very cheap. I think it will work out for you if you use the right 
concentration.


Wear safety googles all the time, old clothing and gloves are suggested.


ST

Attachments

Move to quarantaine

This moves the raw source file on disk only. The archive index is not changed automatically, so you still need to run a manual refresh afterward.