I guess this phrase can be used both ways lol. Anyways, in all that discussion I didn't notice anyone mention that you have to make sure you scrub the copper with Acetone (nothing else works as well) an something abrasive like steel wool (but not steel wool). I use the green dish washing pads. I have tried using degreasers, lacquer thinner, rubbing alchohol...nothing else works as well as acetone. And wear clean nitrile gloves too. Fingerprints have a lot of oils in them.

 

Cleaning is important. What you do depends on the condition of the PCB material you have.

I use the same green pads but with dawn dish soap. It may be the the texture (tooth) the pad give the board may help the toner stay put. Not sure.

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I will have to give the dish soap a try. I would definitely prefer that over acetone. But so far acetone is the only one that seems to ensure all of the toner sticking. But the toner makes a difference, too. I bought a Brother HL-5240, and the toner sticks perfectly. But before when I had copies made at Office Max I always had problems making clean lines, and little bits would come off. The Brother ink is great.

 

ambient. I guess you got lucky with your brother. Read here:
http://www.pulsarprofx.com/PCB/a_Pag...l#Anchor-35882

But, I was using a scotch pad sponge with dishsoap for the fresh boards and acetone to clean up the toner ext. in my screw ups. I read some where that the scratching of the copper from the pads helps the toner stick!

 

The slight scratching will help it stick because it removes the oxidized layer of copper. I am not using the Brother printer with pulsar paper though, and luckily it is not on that list. I am using it with glossy photo paper and simply ironing it on. Then I scratch the back of the paper a little and soak in cold water. Then the paper comes off easily by peeling off some layers and scrubbing with a toothbrush. I still have yet to try magazine paper.

If anyone here has tried magazine paper: Do I have to use a blank page? I was not sure if the color ink on the pages would come off or cause problems.

EDIT: Forgot to mention that when I used acetone to clean the ink it dissolved the ink fine. But it left behind black streaks on the pcb material. Ugly looking... Then I tried lacquer thinner, and that made the ink curdle, and did not leave behind any. So I got a nice white board. So try all kinds of different chemicals if you can.

 

Ambient:

I do not understand why you are not using Pulsar or P&P both give better results then various paper not intended for the purpose. You live in the US where both can be had and at reasonable prices.

I do not have any experience with the P&P but I know the pulsar can make boards with more detail then most people can solder and most often without any touch up. It also works to create fake silkscreens.

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Making fake silkscreens would be very handy. But so far I have made near perfect boards using inexpensive glossy photo paper, so I never bothered to buy the special sheets. The only problem on my last board was due to my fingernail scratching a small bit of toner off. I have not tried getting traces closer than 0.12", but so far I have not needed to.

The sheets are not too expensive, but I am a penny pincher lol.

 

I too pinch pennies. With a bit of care you can dry and reuse the paper that transfered the board foil. I use it to print the silkscreen. I think it could be used to print a 2nd PCB but I would rather use a new bit of paper. Never tried using it a 3rd time.

The paper itself is $1.50 for a 8x11 sheet. That works out to 1.7 cents per square inch. You do have to buy 10 sheets at a time. My first pack has lasted over a year. A lot of that was used up in the first few months when I was learning. Now the boards are smaller and a single sheet goes a long way. You have the option of using the green foil which adds another cent or so to the cost. The foil seals the top of the toner and prevents pinholes in the traces. With that you can get traces below .010" wide. I do not like to go below .012" because the wider traces stand up to rework better.

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So the Pulsar paper is reusable...nice. I will get some and try it out. So far the most time consuming part was removing the paper, so Pulsar paper is much faster. I thought it was simple paper with some special coating, and you still had to scrape off paper.

 

Almost a year? My first pack is still half gone. Good thing the beginner kit came with 2.

Anyways, I just ordered a laminator, carbide drill bit (as it has 1/8 shank for my cheap drill press) and 2 etch-resist pens from digikey.

I do have an off beat question. I am going to try and combine two projects into one unit.

The deal is both circuits individually have a DB9 plug and a special plug with 10 leads on it. I want to build a circuit that will house the DB9 and the other plug. Is there some kind of relay? that will let me use a switch to jump between the two different circuits? I need to relay 19 different traces is what I am trying to say!

 

You have gone through a lot of paper. I know bad toner then bad laminator. But it still sounds like a lot. You must be trying to make a large board.

You switch most anything with the right relay. But to know how to best answer your question we would need to know what you are switching?

EDIT: The chances of getting a good board goes down as the area of the board increases. This made board making much harder back in the Z80 days when you need over 30 inches or so to do very basic systems.

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no the board was only about 3 x 4 inch's. I just had a lot of bad prints, then I didn't think about taping the paper to normal paper before I printed untill the end. As for the circuit I haven't got everything organized yet. I will ask again once I do!!