Cupric chloride is the greatest thing since sliced bread and bottled beer. The emerald green cupric chloride gets loaded with the copper in the etch process transforming itself into dirty green cuprous chloride. Adding a bit of water and bubbling air (oxygen) through the cuprous gradually oxidizes it back to the cupric state, and round and round you go never having to dispose of the toxic ferric chloride or ammonium persulfate of other etchants.
Want to just get rid of the cupric chloride after you are done? Toss in a ball of steel wool and the copper metal will precipitate out on the steel wool. Titrate to neutral what is left over (muriatic acid) with lye and you wind up with salt water.
Jim
--
"If you think you can, or think you can\'t, you\'re right."
--Henry Ford
>
> Came across this site via metalworking discussion. A homebrew spray-etch
> machine and a different etch chemistry (cupric chloride). I haven\'t used
> either.
Quite frankly, I did not take note of whether the toner side was against the board or on the outside of the transparency. I'll take note to place it against the board.
Yup. Forgot that the "add a bit of water" should have been "add a bit of water mixed with muriatic acid". Actually, the link somebody posted to the website for cupric chloride etchant was quite thorough on the titration needed to keep the pH at a proper level.
"David L. Jones" skrev i en meddelelse news: snipped-for-privacy@x40g2000prg.googlegroups.com...
The Point to *me* is to build something that I could not otherwise buy (or buy & hack) for reasonable money - the time I waste drilling 300++ holes is waste of precious life!!
A trivial project maybe - but that I can buy cheaper ready-made in a dollar.
Switch to surface mount - (almost) no holes needed!
I still make my own boards to prototype tricky areas, but they tend to be subsections of a more complicated design. Especially switch mode regulators, also photodiode amplifiers and other layout-sensitive circuits.
For fun, I tried to think up the most difficult methods to make a DIY PCB.
I'm guessing...
1)copper vapor disposition
2)electric discharge machining by hand.
3)gluing an etch resist stencil on the board.
4)stamping and peeling off (weeding) the copper.
5)plating a pattern (perhaps like the plating on plastic process)
6)pouring copper in a mold
I have made pcb boards using a positive on inkjet the main issue is the developer is you make it too strong you have problems ( I use caustic soda ) but I fist mix it with water then I put the pcb in clean water and slowly add the mixture of water and soda caustic I see the water begin to turn blue as the photo resist is developed.
In order to make a double sided board I drill holes some pads to align the boards with the transparancy on the other side
I hope this helps
--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com
Yeah, you just send your gerbers to Olimex and pay the whopping
20-30$. As you have seen, the DIY approach results in sub-optimal boards. Maybe people who already have a small PCB shop at home can get better results, but they can't get soldermask, silkscreen, gold plating and plated through vias. I know my time is spent better elsewhere than dicking around like a high-school student with a paper route.
Assuming (1) you can wait, (2) 8 mils is good enough, and (3) you only need two layer boards. Another alternative is pcb-pool, which has four layer boards and 6 mil rules, although it's more expensive ($35 vs $33 for DS if you don't need mask or silk, plus up to $50 for masks and/or silks.)
Oh, and Olimex is closed at the moment.
... but I can do tighter traces in my basement than Olimex does with their proto special.
I can do silkscreen, in many colors too. I do tin plating, and you can do soldermask with the same film you use for photomasks.
Through vias can be done a couple of ways, too, but I just solder wires in place for the few times I need them.
And no matter how much you pay for overnight service, I'll still be done before you.
Jiangmen ABQ Electronic Material Co.,LTD was estimated in the year of 2006.
specialized in the production of high-end photoimageable PCB ink.
We passed the ISO9001 quality standard identification.and ISO14001.
Our Main products:
PISM white colour RS-2000 (W series)for LED ( patent products ),
PISM white colour matt for automative (we have TS16949 certificate , in Eur ope our RS-2000 WDM already be appointed to use in Automative industry,so t here are a lot of PCB factory from china ,from korea ,from Thailand are buy ing RS-2000 WDM for their Europe automotive order).
Electronica spray ink RS-2000 SP(our electronica spray ink is sucessful in Korea market already)
PISM green colour RS-2000GL
PISM other colours RS-2000 BL,K,Y,R ,and others.
$UV cured solder mask UV-1000 G green colour
UV cured solder mask UV-1000 W white colour
Etching ink RS-1200,RS-1280,RS-8580
UV etching ink UV-680,UV 690.
Conduction current carbon ink RF-1860
Low pressure coating ink:RS-2000 BDHF
Marking ink.
All of our products are approved by UL ,(UL filenumber :E-310593).
Main customers in china :Founder technology ,Tiger builder ,Red board ,KB
,mankun and so on.
Due to we are setting up a new factory ,the total produce capacity will
reach 800tons per month.
In order to meet the new capacity we must develop oversea market largely
with very competitive price.
Our oversea market is developing very fast on the basis of our competitive
price ,stable quality ,excellent service.
Now our oversea market is :korea ,russia ,india ,parkistan,saudi,brazil
,usa,vietnam,turkey,Iran,malaysia and so on.
Consindering the cost ,now more and more PCB manufacturers choose china
mainland PCB ink supplier.
Now we are developing your market,so if we can get cooperation chance from
you then we will be very much appreciated.
Looking forward to hearing from you and best regards.
ElectronDepot website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.