Homebrew PCBs

--- In Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com, "Dave Mucha" <dave_mucha@y...>
wrote:
...
> 
> Check out the photos section, Daves Drill.  the third picture. 
> 
> Imagine if you wanted to remove all the copper with a mechanical 
> etcher.  It would take hours and probably destroy the cutter in short 
> order.
> 
> I get boards by mechanically etching the outlines and then pealing 
> the excess copper.
> 
> The board in the foreground is partially pealed.
> 
> Imagine trying to only solder the pads around the excess copper.
> 
> This is the largest drawback with using mechanical etchers.
> 
> Dave

I understand that.  If it were me, I'd look to make the excess copper
a ground plane.  You should be able to make thermals around pads and
vias in the "excess" areas so soldering isn't hard.  Eagle does this
pretty well but i don't know your layout sw.

With chemical etching, I try to minimize the amount of copper removal
so I use a similar process.  Start with the entire board as a ground
plane.  Route and set isolation to 24 mils.  That leaves a lot of
copper ground plane and extends my etchant by minimizing copper
removed.  I will sometimes drop a via to the ground plane on the other
side to preserve an otherwise unconnected area (which eagle would remove).

I guess my high order bit here is having copper that wont peel off
when soldering but followed very closely by having lots of ground
plane to keep the board quiet.