If you’re in to making your own PCBs at home, you know the trials of etching copper clad boards. It’s slow, even if you’re gently rocking your etch tank or even using an aquarium pump to agitate your etching solution. [cunning_fellow] over on Instructables has the solution to your etching problems, and can even produce printmaking plates, jewelry, photochemically machine small parts, and make small brass logos of your second favorite website.
The Etchinator is a spray etcher, so instead of submerging a copper clad board into a vat of ferric or cupric chloride, etching solution is sprayed onto the board. We’ve seen this technique before, but previous builds use pumps to spray the etching solution and cost a bundle. [cunning_fellow]‘s Etchinator doesn’t used pumps; it’s driven by two cordless drill motors sucking up etching solution through a hollow tube.
The basic idea behind the build is sticking a vertical PVC pipe in a box with etching solution. Mount an impeller in the bottom of the tube, drill many small holes in the side of the tube, and spin it with a motor up top. The solution is sucked up the tube, sprayed out the sides, and falls back down into the reservoir. Put a masked off copper board in the tank and Bob’s your uncle.
Not only did [cunning_fellow] come up with an awesome PCB etching solution, but the same machine can be used for etching brass plate for printmaking, and even photoetching brass sheets for model planes, trains, and automobiles. The quality is really amazing; the Instructables robot above was etched out of 0.7 mm thick brass, with an etch depth of 0.35 mm with only 0.05 mm of undercut. A very awesome build that is already on our ‘to build’ project list.
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Wow, I was trying to design a spray-etch tank recently (Because I’m sick and goddam tired of bubble etching) and I had been wondering if a piece of PVC pipe with a bunch of tiny holes would be sufficient or if I’d need actual nozzles… This sure answers that question!
And then it goes a few miles past my wildest dreams by not even having a pump! DC motors? Really? Yeah, i think I can scrounge a couple of THOSE up! ;P
Awesome build, gonna help me IMMENSELY.
Bubbling isn’t working for you? How hot are you running your tank? I’ve had boards etch in under 2 minutes bubbling with a hot tank. If you’re not seeing fumes rising you’re etching too cold.
Why does everyone say there’s no pump, when I see two? Something has to get the etchant up from the bottom of the reservoir, and that something is a pump, even if it works on a vacuum somehow.
More precisely, the “pumps” are the same kind as used in perfume spray bottles, where high-pressure air is used to draw up perfume through a venturi and out a nozzle. Same idea applies here. But, it’s still a pump.
Alright, through your rage of pedantry I think you’re going to have to focus on the key part of the build here.
The previous etchant sprayer used a pump. A pump you would use to push water through a garden water feature, for example. The Instructables I linked to explicitly mentions that putting acid through some of these pumps is a bad idea. Also, these pumps cost a great deal more than a piece of PVC pipe.
This build uses and electric drill motor to ‘spin up’ etchant through a tube. The only thing touching the etchant are pieces of plastic. It’s a much more reliable system, and cheaper to boot.
Good job on construing inexact language (as all natural languages are) into something that somehow caused a paradox in your mind. Unfortunately, that doesn’t make you clever. That just makes you the guy who purposely misinterprets things in a futile attempt to appear learned.
Keep in mind what you’re doing: you’re trying to impress people in the comments section of a small, fringe tech blog. You’re not the only one, either. Every post on hackaday – every post – is filled with commentors like you that try desperately to impress people through their lack of reading comprehension.
It’s fairly widely accepted that the comments section on Hackaday is a cesspool for the whole hacker/maker movement. Nearly every daily HaD reader I’ve talked to says something about the caliber of the comments, especially the issue of the amateur grammarians and 8th grade creative writing students. You’re part of the problem. Stop it.
Then I suggest having someone review your work before publishing and make changes — we could call them an editor. Maybe let the pedants have early access and send in suggestions like the Firehose at Slashdot.
You could say this project doesn’t use a standard water pump, but what you conveyed was wrong. Rather than fix it, you whine about persecution.
In technical fields, LANGUAGE MATTERS. Not being precise leads to a hundred people dying: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyatt_Regency_walkway_collapse
Your continual grammar and spelling mistakes are like petty crimes in the Broken Windows Theory; you don’t care enough to do a good job writing a post, why should others care about writing a good comment?
Saying “it doesn’t use a pump” is simpler than saying “it uses a piece of PVC pipe and a DC motor to effect a pumping apparatus, in place of a larger and more expensive commercial solution”, and everyone ELSE got it.
As someone who often argues for the sake of arguing, I’m not one to talk…but there’s a time and place for being that pedantic.
@Brain,
Normally, you have the best grammar on the site, and I appreciate that. When you are done being an ass though, the very first definition of “pump” is;
pump1 [puhmp] Show IPA
noun
1.
an apparatus or machine for raising, driving, exhausting, or compressing fluids or gases by means of a piston, plunger, or set of rotating vanes.
So, @Munch is right.
Also, your statement “The Etchinator is a spray etcher, so instead of submerging a copper clad board into a vat of ferric or cupric chloride.” is missing the rest of your thought. Yes you get to it later, but it’s confusing to read. Then there is ” Nearly daily HaD reader I’ve talked to…”, and I have to ask, do you mean “Nearly every HaD reader…”? As a nonnative english speaker, it is very hard to understand what is conveyed when those that are can’t use it properly.
> Nearly daily HaD reader I’ve talked to
And of course I fail to properly edit my rant.
I’ve fixed the missing part of the sentence in the post, and I thank you for pointing that out.
Commentors finding strange and ludicrous objections to a build (see the electric car posted today for a few examples) and purposefully misinterpreting what I write has been an issue for a while now. You can only see it too many times without cracking, apparently.
Don’t let it get to you… Ha. Right. It’s the main reason that 90% of my posts get written, then I move along before hitting ‘post’… seems like the majority of folks that bother responding to something are either nitpicking at it or are just bound and determined to show the world what a sphincter they are.
I saw a video article on CNN about a fairly new maker-style educational startup… some nimrod’s response was that if the founder was better looking to him personally he’d pay more attention to the video.
Looks are everything.
It’s a pump.
I was sort of expecting to see a finer spray, why I don’t, when the best you cab expect from pumping water through holes drilled in a pipe is a streams of water. Maybe I’m having one of those days pump I’m not seeing the pump lifts water along with providing enough volume, and pressure to force the fluid out of all the holes to pride even coverage. No matter, I don’t etch enough boards to construct this anyway, and any artistic use really doesn’t interest me. Not to mention I’m fare enough into the boonies that scrounging up some of the materials would be a challenge
make small brass logos of your second favorite website
not!
THE SOLUTION to your etching problems!
oh man, I’m sure that wasn’t intended, but it got me good.
Maybe aquarium bubblers suck? I never tried one. I use a cheap 12V tire inflater pump to bubble etchant. Works great!
to the workshop-deprived, I would suggest another route – print a peristaltic pump from thingiverse. the throughput is small, but the pressure is high, so you can use a descent nozzle to get a fine mist-like spray.
But a fine mist is not what you want.
actually i took a look at the end of the post where he talks troubleshooting and the biggest problem is non-uniform spraying , which makes some areas etch faster than others. wouldn’t mist give much higher uniformity than the ~0.3″ – spaced streams he is using now?
I think the spacing is actually more like 0.08″
There needs to be enough weight behind the impact to disturb the insoluble film of spent etchant. Maybe if your only going to use amonium persulfate then do a mist. If your using either of the chlorides then is suggest going with volume.