Homebrew PCBs

The laser printer I've bought has turned out to be a complete disaster because no matter what settings I use it seems to print an extremely thin layer of toner.

It's a Fuji Xerox P205b, only cost me $50.

I thought because it had a resolution of 1200 x 1200 it may lay down a decent quantity of toner but that's not the case. I've just got my UV box and wanted to try my first photo resist PCB board but after printing the pattern I hold the paper up to the light and I can see my fingers through the toner quite easily. The light is definitely getting through the "black" so I'm guessing the UV would get past it too.

There was a HP printer for twice the price which only had a resolution of 600 x 600 but the reviews on it said it used a lot of toner. I'm now wondering if that would have been the better printer even though it's resolution wasn't as good.

Anybody have any recommendations for a cheap printer that is available in the shops now. I need good solid (without pinholes), opaque toner density so the UV can't get through.

Cheers,

Keith.

You don't need a pitch black and thick toner cover for UV, uniformity is 
more important, if your exposure is short.  When I started doing UV I 
always printed 2 copies and aligned them for extra darkness and did a 
long exposure (2m30s), but now I only print one copy, works just as well 
with a short exposure (50 seconds under UV leds).  I use dry film 
negative resist and tracing paper artwork.

As for printers, I have several but the one i use mainly for this is a 
Brother HL5340D, with Toner save off and  "Improve Toner Fixing" on, at 
1200dpi.  My MFC-7420 doesnt have an fixing improvement setting and the 
toner tends to rub off tracing paper too easily if I use that printer.

At least here in NZ printers (laser and inkjet both) are pretty easy to 
come by second hand for between $1 and $20, buy one, use it, abuse it, 
strip it down for bits when you're done and move on to the next.

On 17/10/13 13:28, beefyzee@... wrote:
>
> I thought because it had a resolution of 1200 x 1200 it may lay down a 
> decent quantity of toner but that's not the case. I've just got my UV 
> box and wanted to try my first photo resist PCB board but after 
> printing the pattern I hold the paper up to the light and I can see my 
> fingers through the toner quite easily. The light is 
> definitely getting through the "black" so I'm guessing the UV would 
> get past it too.
>
>
>

Thanks very much James.

I can try both of your methods and see how things work. I just called Officeworks and they can do A4 transparency for a whopping 60c or A4 tracing paper for a whopping 40c LOL, so if my attempts fail I could pop down there and see how that turns out.

The guy was helpful but very un-knowledgable about toner density. I might find out what printer they use and see if I can download the user manual then I can tell him how to get max density. I'm sure he'll like that, LOL.

Keith.

Something worth mentioning for anyone having the same problem with toner density. I started printing a couple of patterns on tracing paper and thought I'll see if the selection of "paper type" (i.e. in the driver program) made much difference.

Recycleable was worse if anything, chucked that one away.

Tried "Label" and noticed the print came out slower. The density does seem a bit "blacker" (although still not completely opaque) so the choice of paper type in the printer program seems to affect the toner density.

I wish the manual would explain how all these settings affect things.

Now to try and line up the two printouts perfectly and stick them together.

Amazing what we go through to make a circuit board, but I can't stop myself LOL.

Keith.

Thank you very much Jan.

I knew about the high quality setting but I had no idea that the heavy card setting affected things.

I've got two other settings in addition to "Label". They are "Lightweight Cardstock" and "Postcard JPN".

I'll try them out. Hopefully the lightweight cardstock is denser than label and postcard JPN is denser again. It will be great if I don't have to use 2 transparencies with one on top of the other.

Cheers,

Keith.