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Ammonium Persulfate disadvantages?

Ammonium Persulfate disadvantages?

2008-12-04 by Jim Miller

I just read Adam Seychell's page on various etching solutions.

It seems to me that the only disadvantage to ammonium persulfate is slow
etch speed at room temp.

Does this result in a poor etch control? Poor etch definition? Other
problems?

Since my use is for hobby purposes only I'm not sure why slow speed is a
problem.

Does anyone have any experience with ammonium persulfate that can give some
insight?

tia

jim ab3cv


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Re: [Homebrew_PCBs] Ammonium Persulfate disadvantages?

2008-12-04 by leon Heller

----- Original Message ----- 
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From: "Jim Miller" <jim@...>
To: <Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, December 04, 2008 3:16 AM
Subject: [Homebrew_PCBs] Ammonium Persulfate disadvantages?


>I just read Adam Seychell's page on various etching solutions.
>
> It seems to me that the only disadvantage to ammonium persulfate is slow
> etch speed at room temp.
>
> Does this result in a poor etch control? Poor etch definition? Other
> problems?
>
> Since my use is for hobby purposes only I'm not sure why slow speed is a
> problem.
>
> Does anyone have any experience with ammonium persulfate that can give 
> some
> insight?

Continuous agitation will be very tedious if doing it by hand. You might get 
a lot of undercutting. It doesn't keep very long when made up, unlike FeCl3.

Leon

Re: [Homebrew_PCBs] Ammonium Persulfate disadvantages?

2008-12-04 by Markus Zingg

The main disadvantages IMHO of ammonium persulfate in adition of what 
you say are :

- It does not last long in terms of how many PCBs you can etch up until 
it does no longer etch.
- You should return or otherwise savely dispose the used up solution. In 
other words you can't reactivate it. At least not that I would know of.
- It is relatively costly to get, and cobined with the above that's a 
major thing.

Of course, if you only make one board per year you are probably good. 
The advantage it is having is that you can see through it and as such 
your able to whatch what's going on. However, once you know the 
behaviour of a given setup (no matter what you use), this is no longer 
so important.

Just my 2\ufffd of course

Markus

Jim Miller schrieb:
Show quoted textHide quoted text
>
> I just read Adam Seychell's page on various etching solutions.
>
> It seems to me that the only disadvantage to ammonium persulfate is slow
> etch speed at room temp.
>
> Does this result in a poor etch control? Poor etch definition? Other
> problems?
>
> Since my use is for hobby purposes only I'm not sure why slow speed is a
> problem.
>
> Does anyone have any experience with ammonium persulfate that can give 
> some
> insight?
>
> tia
>
> jim ab3cv
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>

Re: [Homebrew_PCBs] Ammonium Persulfate disadvantages?

2008-12-05 by Adam Seychell

Jim Miller wrote:
> I just read Adam Seychell's page on various etching solutions.
> 
> It seems to me that the only disadvantage to ammonium persulfate is slow
> etch speed at room temp.

It needs heating  30 to 70C to get practical etch rates. Its not as 
economical as FeCl3 and other chloride based etchants. I guess some 
people use it because they like to see the PCB being etched.

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