Saturday 20 February 2010

Etched boards

Here's the two boards I etched using the laserprinter/laminator method.

From PCB


From PCB


The laminator bound the laser toner to the boards really well. I used a few mm of ferric chloride, and dabbed/rubbed it onto the board with a cotton wool ball (wearing GLOVES). The centre etched first, and I was able to rub more around the edges to finish off the etch.

The etching worked really well. The detail came out fantastically - even the drill marks came out on the stepper board. You can also clearly see a minature mouse pointer in the centre of the temperature board - oops!

The toner bound so well to the copper that I had to scrub the completed boards with a green scourer and cif to get the toner off - it was harder work than cleaning the boards in the first place!
There is a small error on the stepper board (bottom left corner, just above the resistors). When transferring the laserprint to the board, before the laminator, I accidentally smudged a track. This is probably repairable when I add the via/wire bridges.

[Edit - I thought this was based on the Makerbot stepper driver (A3982) - but I actually picked up the files from the RepRap distribution, which are actually V3.0 of the stepper driver, based on the A3977. Wow, I'm ahead of the curve!]
Schematic:
From PCB

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Easiest way to remove toner from boards is chemically.

Use acetone or nail varnish remover.

Unknown said...

Thanks. Since I've got two girls, we've usually got plenty of nail varnish remover around. I'll give that a try next time!