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advice on CuCl etchant?

2004-09-27 by Phil

I mixed up a batch of HCl and H2O2 and got good etching (which was
mostly from the HCl).  There were some bubbles but no chlorine gas.  I
etched 6 double sided boards that were on average 20x20 CM in the
first session.  The etchant turned the well described emerald green. 
3 days later, I went to etch another board and got no (or r-e-a-l-l-y
slow) progress.  I bubbled it for about 18 hrs total (with 2 airstones
- lots of bubbles).  Still no etching.  

I got a hydrometer and the density is 1.075.  This is well below the
1.17 recommended by
<http://users.rcn.com/rexa/Projects/CuCl_ech.html>.  From the HCl and
H2O2 I put in, the s.g. should have been 1.029 so I assume that the
difference, 0.046, is from the etched copper in the form of CuCl.  It
appears I have too weak a cucl solution by about 1/4 but I'm not 100%
sure about the chemistry here.  Everything I've read says that it
doesn't take much copper at all so I'm a bit at a loss here.  I need
to get pH measuring capability but the density is clearly wrong.

Any suggestions for fixing?  The page mentioned above recommends CuCl
salts which I have no idea where to get and probably shouldn't have to.

I'm going to put a couple pieces of copper in over night to see if I
can get more copper into solution but its not clear to me that will
actually work.

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