Some time ago, I tried the blue "press-n-peel" transfer system with limited success. Their press was also purchased and I think that was a good idea. Just lately, more press-n-peel was ordered but it looks thin, the coating was light and streaky and the hp-1300 printer must have liked it a lot because it just ate this new stuff. I sent the rest of it back. Taking the advice of some members of this forum, a local printer gave me some magazine paper. It's glossy on both sides, takes toner well and comes off afterwards. He also said that ink-jet paper had a pitted surface that takes ink in small puddles but will put small holes in toner. Could be. One of the first problems that I ran across with this paper was a close but not exact alignment between the top and bottom sheets on a light table. They should align exactly since they came from the same drawing, just different layers. I use Canvas 9. Next came time and temperature in the press: At 350 degrees and 45 seconds, toner runs like water. HOT = wavy edges to lines. It had slightly better line definition, i.e. straighter edges to the lines, at 250 degrees for 5 minutes. It got even better at 200 degrees for 5 minutes. Next, I'll try a lower temperature but there're no markings on the press below 200 degrees. I put a piece of thin double sided PC board in the press to act as a bottom plate. The work is put between this and the press's hot plate. So far, no differences have shown up between the (work) PC board's two sides. Toner transfer here (200) was virtually complete. Some holes appeared but that's more likely due to board cleaning faults. Thanks for the tip on using a rag instead of paper towels too! I'm getting closer but we all seem to know that we won't get the best results until we've seen every possible fault first. Please keep posting. Even a one liner can save hours of otherwise wasted time. Thanks to all, TM
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[Homebrew_PCBs] some progress and a few problems
2004-12-31 by Terry Mickelson
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