Negative Laser Etching

August 17, 2010 by Mike Szczys 23 Comments

[James] has been refining a method of negatively etching metal with a laser. He had been using a product called Thermark which is designed for this process, but it’s quite expensive. He found that paint designed for wood stoves works just as well. To prepare the surface he bead blasted it and then cleaned of the residue and finger prints off with acetone. The board was preheated in an oven before covering it with the spray paint. He ran the laser at 98/100 power and 90/400 speed at a step size of 0.1mm to achieve the results above. This should immediately make you think about making circuit boards. We’d love to ditch the toner transfer and we’re always looking for one more reason to get a laser cutter.

Make Your Own Toner Transfer Paper

July 12, 2010 by Jakob Griffith 17 Comments

Who would have thought that some corn starch could be made into toner transfer paper? We’re not sure of the advantages (perhaps its cheaper?), but if you have a lot of time or just love to get sticky [Matthew Sager] shows the proper method for making the paper, printing, and then etching a PCB.

If you’re just getting started making PCBs, we recommend you check out these DIY circuit etching videos to get a better grasp on the printing and etching steps.

Toner Transfer Explained Step-by-step

May 7, 2010 by Mike Szczys 33 Comments

[Tanjent] send us a link to his tutorial on the toner transfer process for fabricating circuit boards. We’ve seen a lot of these in the past, but we liked how his is straight to the point while also sharing several tips and options along the way. Notably, he ”tints” the copper clad before trying to adhere the toner to it by swabbing on a bit of etchant. His reasoning for this is that the toner has more trouble sticking to the shiny copper. Just a bit of etchant will pit the surface and let the toner stick better.

He’s still using paper as a medium and not printing toner powder directly to the copper clad. His paper of choice is HP Brochure Paper while we use glossy pages from the union newspaper. But like us, he does use copper chloride as an etchant, which you can learn to make yourself. We’re still looking for a definitive solution for disposing of this chemical. We’ve been using the same batch for years and recently it’s turned cloudy with impurities. If you’ve got disposal tips let’s hear them in the comments section.

Print Toner Directly To A PCB

May 4, 2010 by Mike Szczys 33 Comments

We use the toner transfer method to fabricate printed circuit boards. The most difficult part of this is printing, ironing, and removing the paper from the toner that is used as an etchant resist material. [Mark Lerman] is developing a method to apply toner directly to the copper clad using a laser printer. Each of the photos in his gallery have comments that take us through his process. A laser printer has been modified to negatively charge the copper plate, thereby attracting the positively charged toner to it. Once the toner has been applied, the board is baked in an oven, then run through a laminator. This process can yield 2 mil traces and it looks like the potential for incredibly clean boards is just around the corner. The question is, will this be easier and take less time than using photo resist?

We’ve contacted [Mark] in hopes of getting more details. If you can’t wait for a follow-up, take a look at this thread concerning his work.

[Thanks Komradbob]