Flexible PCBs at home?

Flexible PCBs are neat. It seems like it shouldn't be that hard to make them with the usual hobbyist techniques. Has anyone tried this?

The main problem I foresee is that the flexible material is not as heat-resistant as the normal PCB materials (fr4, phenolic, or whatever). This shouldn't be a problem for toner-transfer or photoresist etching, but it would be a problem for attaching components and for rework. Maybe a carefully-controlled hotplate reflow setup would work.

The data sheets for Dupont Pyralux (polyimide) have a specification that mentions 10 sec. at 288 C for soldering, and a few hours at ~190 C for lamination, but no mention of what the maximum temperature for the material is. Rogers rates its R/flex 1000 to an operating temperature of 150 C.

The other problem is finding the flexible copper-clad material in hobbyist quantities ... and at hobbyist prices :-) Farnell sells it, as does

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but it's not cheap. Then again, I don't intend to make very large assemblies out of it, so I should get several projects out of one sheet.

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   Wim Lewis , Seattle, WA, USA. PGP keyID 27F772C1
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Wim Lewis
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