Homebrew PCBs

Hello,

My desire for it is less for me and more for my customers... (except 
for the real issues involved with semi-production smd's in the 
toaster oven when used without soldermask.)

Screen print and soldermask make the board look better, and can make 
it easier to charge more for the item. Expecially when the "item" is 
sold at a "board level"-- means no case or cover.

There are more than a few items which sell in a decent "yearly" 
volume, but at any given time only 1 or 2... So you either have to 
inventory a bunch of commercial pcb's--to get a decent price, OR you 
pay--and charge-- a higher price if you buy 'em as you go...

Ballendo

P.S. I actually kinda liked the green testors spray paint idea. But I 
don't think that's gonna work going through the oven process...

P.P.S. I saw a printer last night at a local electronics store that 
had a plastic carrier for printing directly onto cd's. That carrier 
could easily be made on a cnc machine, or modified to carry a board. 
Just gotta get the right goop(s) for the print head. Avecia has the 
goop, but they use the industrial style inkjet head. Been looking at 
the differences, and reading a lot of patents lately...

I'm thinking that a 500 buck pcb printer might be a hot seller... 
print resist,etch, print soldermask, print legends... DEFINITELY NEED 
TO make this happen... Combine that with the 500 buck drill and a 
whole lot of pcb protos get made<G>

--- In Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com, "Phil" <phil1960us@y...> wrote:
> for populating the board, its unnecessary.  But I like it even on 
one-
> offs for labling connectors (particularly which wire goes where).  
> Saves me looking up the schematic/layout.
> 
> --- In Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com, Stefan Trethan 
> <stefan_trethan@g...> wrote:
> > 
> > I now read you say screen printing is easy to do...
> > 
> > well, why don't you use a soldermask for screenprinting?
> > this german company also had this i think.
> > 
> > If the amount of paint is enough it will fill the via, if it is 
> small
> > enough.
> > 
> > I do not like screenprinting... way too much steps..
> > (if you only make few boards which you mostly immediately 
populate 
> manually
> > afterwards both things are not needed, component layout and 
> soldermask).
> > 
> > 
> > good luck...
> > 
> > ST