My first photo etch

you can buy the contents in a can and spray the board in a dark room and store them some where for drying. P.S. there is a shelf live for this chemical, keeping it in the fridge extends it.

You might look at think and tinker's dry-film. You can probably get a wal-mart laminator to apply it, but I've only checked the temp on my unit, so the jury's still out as to what modifications I'd need.

What was the symptom? Did it mash your dryfilm? I ran a toner transfer through it a couple of times and it worked. I think slowing it down would allow me to do it in a single run. IIRC the laminators sold for dry film apply pressure but don't remember how much.

I think the hard part is finding a cheap laminator that will accept the thickness of a PCB. I tried this a few years ago and never got dependable laminations of the dry film with the cheap laminator I tried to use.

At the time I think the cheapest ThinkTink laminator was over $300. I bought a much cheaper one from a local office supply but it was not designed to accept .031 thickness. I opened up the case and made some mechanical mods to let it open up a bit wider. There were some screws to adjust tension which I also made externally accessable.

As I recall, with mine, the laminate had kind of a wavy quality. Probably uneven heat or pressure. The one I had did not have heated rollers either -- it had a heating strip.

Bottom line... you get what you pay for and I tried to go cheap. Hard to tell the mechanics of a laminator without opening it up and I think it matters a lot for this application.

In message , Rex writes

How 'bout the fuser assembly from an old laser printer? Should be possible to buy a refurb assembly for an old Laserjet II,III or IV for little money. The temperature would need controlling and you'd have to drive it but............