homemade multilayer PCB?

Yes, I make gerbers and send them to a PCB shop. The "somehow" includes high temperatures and pressures for hours, and is also an experience-based endeavor, there will be a lot of scrap at first.

I haven't done it but I have thought about it.

For the most part it's just stacked individual pieces. You could just glue several single layer pieces together(would tend to be thick though).

I thought also about laminating my own bu I imagine this might be more of a challenge. would need a decent press and decent adhesive.

The only real challenge IMO would be dealing with the holes/vias. (except for simple designs) Although this isn't a real technical challenge but would be time consuming and tedius.

When you start to think about it the time/cost/headaches involved starts approaching that of getting it done professionally. Of course if you have the time/money/space and will make more than a handfull it could be worthwhile.

Remember, if your etching it you would also have to add the photoresist.

If you just need double sided and one will be a ground plane without traces then I imagine you can just drill holes and use some wire to form the vias. This wouldn't be very difficult at all.

Another method, if you only have single sided, would be to etch on both sides on the one side but cut the board and glue them together then add the wire vias. (would be twice as thick of course)

Man, laylow.. I am really bad at doing things myself I should let someone else do. It's part of my character flaw package. I understand the "do it yourself" thing. But manufacturing MULTI-LAYER boards are really...hmmm, let's say they are FAR more work than they are worth, especially because of the incredibly savage market out there for PCBs. You really need to get the design into a single layer with wire vias, or even two layer glued with wire vias to do it yourself... Good luck.

On a sunny day (Tue, 27 Jan 2009 07:10:11 -0800 (PST)) it happened laylow wrote in :

I did once, it worked, but never again. Used wires through the holes to connect both sides. Solder ICs on top and bottom too... Had to do several more then I needed to get it right.

Better have that stuff done, cheaper too, and not so much mess in the kitchen.

Not a technical challenge? How do you propose to make connections to inner layers of a multilayer PCB?

Um, think about it and maybe it won't be so difficult? (how do you think they do it in the first place? magic?)

You first drill all the holes.

You do layer 1 and layer 2 this forms a new layer. Then treat that as a single layer and do the same as the first step with layer 3. Do this until you run out of layers. There are no interdepence between more than two layers unless you have a via that is connected to several layers. This is a little more tricky but not by much.

Not necessarily. I very much prefer 1/32" (0.8 mm) stock for "regular" single-sided home-brew boards. Easy to cut to size with scissors, easy to drill, rigid/strong enough for small projects. A double-sided board would just use a pair of these glued together and you'd end up with one just a bit thicker than the standard 1/16" PCB thickness.

--
Rich Webb     Norfolk, VA

Wonderful. Now explain how you get the copper inside the drill hole, you know, to connect all these inner layers...

Um, if you were paying attention... or at least didn't think you knew it all then you might get it.

Did you think you can use copper wire? huh? wouldn't that work? You do realize that a via is the same thing as a TH? Have you ever used a lead of a TH component to connect two sides together?

Note your so called inner layers are not inner layers until you have added a layer. You built up the layers one at a time like any reasonably intelligent person would do. Maybe you guys should read up on how they actually manufacture multi-layer pcb's because I'm relativelys ure they don't start out with all the layers unetched and sandwhiched together then use some type of magic to get the holes and etching through.

Man... the intelligence of people supprises me every day... more so is the arrogance.

How about..

( ) solder

-------- . -------Cu layer 1

-------- . ---------FR4

-----------------Cu layer 2

-----------------FR4

-----------------Cu layer 3

-----------------FR4

-----------------Cu layer 4

-----------------FR4

Stack of single layer boards.

The hole in layer 1 is big enough to allow solder to join layers. A few mm. It's a humongous hole.

Joining layer 2 to 3 is done using the same technique but is soldered prior to stacking. Adjacent layers have holes to allow space for the solder blobs. iow..it's assembled and connected from the inside out.

It's crappy, but doable.

D from BC myrealaddress(at)comic(dot)com British Columbia Canada

Forget it. Not a practical prayer in hell.....

And how, pray tell, would you now glue all this mess together without shorts? Huh? Would that work?

How would you connect the inner layers this way? You'd only connect the outer layers this way.

They use chemistry and drills. They etch the laminations one at a time. Then they drill the whole mess. Then they use chemical etch to de-smear the holes. Then they plate the holes. It connects all the layers at the same time.

You say "relativelys ure" about stuff you have no clue about. Who's arrogant here?

So I did, and it worked. That was a 4 layer double size Eurocard

160 * 233.4 mm back when the Z80 was the greatest. (and a TMS9914A GPIB chip!)

I used the inner layers just for VCC and GND, the two outer layers for signals. The inner layers were on a normal two-sided board, for the outer layers I could get 50 um thin FR4 with copper on one side. I had to buy one square meter, there's still sth. left :-)

50 um is a little bit thicker than the usual copper layer.

Where there were VCC and GND connections, I drilled with a

2 mm diameter bit through the 50 um foil, glued everything together with UHU-PLUS / Araldite, carefully avoiding the VCC/gnd locations. Then I drilled the holes for the chips & vias. VCC and GND could be soldered through the 2 mm boreholes using a thin, hot iron; vias with wire.

It worked, but I never tried that again.

regards, Gerhard

Of course it isn't. You're assuming the holes are already plated. Try it and let me know how it works. So the idea is you need multiple layers because your 1mm holes eat up so much space? Absurd.

Take a look at the temperature needed for bonding boards. Let me know the coefficient of expansion of solder vs. fr-4.

I agree with 50% of that. Guess which 50%.

Eh, won't stop some people in here. There are still people who want to convert laptop screens into a stand-alone monitor!!!!

Ok, whatever... I've never tried explaining calculus to a rock but I get the feeling it would be similar to explaining this to you... except the rock isn't an arrogant fool.

On a sunny day (Tue, 27 Jan 2009 22:49:39 +0100) it happened Gerhard Hoffmann wrote in :

Yes, these days if I need prototype that would require more then one layer I just wire it with flat cable. Works OK to 50MHz, Did the Z80 board that way to many many years ago. Takes a few hours, but result is in faster then doin ga layout, sending it to some place, witng or it to com4 bak. And much easier to make changes: ftp://panteltje.com/pub/s/wiring2.jopg

Sorry, correct link is: ftp://panteltje.com/pub/s/wiring2.jpg

Wow, a graduate of the Phil Allison School of Internet Asshattery, summa cum laude! Look, you're not making sense. You don't know what you're talking about, and I bet you never even try anything you talk about. You change subjects every other day.

Try it. Take pictures. Put a video on Youtube. Show me how it's done.

I'll wait, I'm patient. I'm even generous; do you need a camera, or materials?