Homebrew PCBs

>why welding?  does that give superior results to gluing?  PVC is 
>really easy to glue but looks a little messy if not careful.  I use 
>it for water pipes (pressured and unpressured) and it holds pretty 
>well.  Just curious.
>
>also, I made my tank with plexiglass and aquarium sealer.  Kind of 
>ugly but works just fine.  I was a little nervous but it has stood up 
>to a fair number of etchings.

That's the point. When it comes to really agressiv stuff, you feel
much better with a welded tank. The reason is simple in that if it
does not leak, it will never leak (provided there was no mechanical
shock of course). I decided to weld my tanks for the through plating
station cause in there you have to use highly conentrated stuff like
sulfric acid and other VERY ugly things. Another reason was that I
partially don't know what exactly is inside the fluides. Now, if the
chemistry povider tells you that PVC can resist the stuff, you
definately feel quite good if you weld in that you are sure no other
chemical reaction - even long term - can happen. If you glue you never
know what the chemistry does to your glue. 

Of curse, knownleadge is power. So, if you know exactly what the glue
does and what kind of chemicals you use glueing is surely ok too. 

Oh, before I foreget, with a welding gun, you also can bend plastics
really well and also process other plastics that might be very hard to
glue. Then, it also serves as a very good tool to remove SMD
components from a PCB. There is also no drying period needed after
welding. Lots of reasons to do it, but I agree that one can do without
:-)

Markus