In the mid 1970's I was privileged to go to a high school that had an electronics lab. They used a photo lith system where you put in a master with a rubber sticky tape traces and the output would be a lithograph ready to make a board. From there we would use a photo resist method and expose the board. That in of itself was a mess as timing and newness of the bulb was at stake to a successful pin free trace. Then into the heated ferric chloride tank it went. It was in a fume hood. Chlorine gases evolve off and are highly corrosive and toxic. For outdoor use only! Most boards still had to be coated with a layer of solder and most traces were pretty wide at about .100". But this was also in the day when IC's were pretty new to the commercial market. No Fry's.com, no Jameco Electronics but with Radio shack and Heathkit was all there was and well needless to say they were stuck in the 1950's.

Forward into the 1980's I worked for a start-up aerospace company called American Rocket company. (It is what gave roots to Burt Rutan) I was their one and only electronics tech for a long time and we did everything out of wirewrapping. Then one day I had a rep contact me for a business in Grass Valley who would make inexpensive (around $2 per square inch) double sided boards with solder mask and silk screen. All we had to do was to give him ruby lith masters and he took care of the rest. He just started and was really hurting for business.

Today we have the electronics changing in almost everything electronics touches. You thought lead free is all, well we now have halogen free coming from the EU and hitting the US as we speak. That means no more plastic cases, no more PC boards made with bromine (a fire retardant) No more wire made with PVC or anything halogenic meaning no Teflon because of fluorine, no PVC because of everything in it. Is there good news out of this, yes, there is one manufacturer of PC boards that are halogen certified free. There is possibly nylon or silicon jackets for wire, and components using epoxy's are exempt. (that is why Brother went to an epoxy based system).

So what does the future hold.

Energy:HHO is a ripe possibility. I also worked as a middle manager for an oil company and I know their hucksterism. Google Hubbard's Peak and you can see that we are already past where oil is easy to get at. Wonder why oil is so high? Exploration costs keep going up because of needing to find deeper and rock locked oil vis a vis Dr. Hubbard.

Electric cars have a simple yet unmitigated issue. Lithium combusts like sodium does in water another-words violently. Nickle metal hydride does not have the longevity. So I see the electric car way, way off into the future. I hear Honda is working on a super capacitor made of nano technology carbon.

Electronics will be green and sustainable which means I think lots of great under the radar opportunities in electronics like 3VO said about the HHO. That means having on ones resume the knowledge of putting together PC boards is a real good thing. So kudos to all of you who are experimenting here. It can get expensive but so is skiing or playing tennis.

Here is a realy cool futuristic video relating to electronics and the manufacture of PC boards: YouTube - Atmel's new maxTouch technology

I like the Pulsar system. I might put in my own 2 cents here. I like using an iron. I also use a marble roller that I heat up to get the hundreds of PSI required for the transfers. It seems to work I just have still to get the timing and the heat right. I will measure my iron when I get that perfect transfer. Pulsar did a real good job with their products and I highly recommend this system if only for the decal system. If we can work on the paper costs it seems to me the real profit is in the fantastic foils.

Someone before asked about a solder mask. I do not know if this will work but I am going to try the toner system. I get the holes and pads in a TIFF file and throw it into Photoshop, hit the magic wand over the white space, hit invert the selection, and expand the perimeter by 1 point. That seems to do the trick between SOIC pins not converging. Remember a solder mask is merely there to simplify the scrapping of solder paste and keeping the solder localized once it heat up. Yeah it also makes the board look spiffy. I would not worry about that you can flow solder lightly over the traces to keep them shiny. Always take your flux off it is toxic and sticky. Any professional board shop would never allow a board to be assembled with flux still on the board. I am sure the EPA is not too happy about flux ending up in our dumps.

Well that is it for my long rant. Peace, love, and abundance, we all could use some.

Why Angelgroove? I put together start-ups for highly placed people, and I do it for stock not cash, hence the Angel. There is money to be found everywhere in forming your own start-up company. Look for anything you can get for free or trade for stock in the company.

Originally Posted by mvs sarma

Please see this Youtube video, especially after 2nd minute. the paper is just removed like a magic. I still wonder what could this paper be.

YouTube - PCB etching with inkjet picture paper

Maybe his secret was poking the holes in the none toner parts of the paper before he ironed it on? Maybe the magic liquid he soaked it in

It had no sound, was grainy, and parts where cut out.

Next one I will do I will poke some holes, but my current method works fine.

Nice boards up there DirtyLude!

One of the posters in the Puslar web site have used 30 awg wirewrapping wire, they seem to flatten it out with needelnose but that seems tough to do but at any rate, they put the wire all the way through fold it over the pad and cut it flush to the edge of the pad not the hole. That way it really connects to the pad whether the hole is drilled right or not, and then solder it up. Cant say that its any easier or harder than your method. Needless to say, plated through holes are a real pain.

About drilling with small bits. The bit needs very high speed probably 10,000 rpm to keep out the ripouts. The other thing too is bit wander which happens when you use a chuck (these bits are vary small and the chuck gets very little to no "bite") and is better done with a router drill press using a collet.

But that still will give you bit wander so here is the best thing to do. Machinist use stepped down drill bits to first put in a maker hole. You can get these from WW Grainger (you need an account) or any machine shop supplier. They have 1/8" shanks and step down close to the end to the desired drill size. This keeps the drill bit where it is supposed to go. The only problem is the depth of these bits is very short, they will go through most 4 oz boards but you have to set up a stop otherwise you end up with a countersunk whole or worse yet you drill all the way through with the 1/8" shank.

These epoxy boards are hell on drill bits. So get plenty of them as a worn out bit is dangerous and wont cut to the desired dimension. Another dimension to drilling or routing through these epoxy boards is grip. The boards tend to grip the bit pulling it in. Be aware of that because it can pull a drill bit.

To recap: high speed, stop setting drill press, setup drills (a box of them, and make sure the step is back from the tip enough to make it through a board), hold the board in a vise of some sort because again fiberglass will grab the bit. That can mean it starts spinning your board at whatever RPM you set. Very dangerous, and for people like me a magnifying lens because these holes are small and you want the hole in the right place otherwise your devices may not fit.

Originally Posted by mramos1

Maybe his secret was poking the holes in the none toner parts of the paper before he ironed it on? Maybe the magic liquid he soaked it in

It had no sound, was grainy, and parts where cut out.

Next one I will do I will poke some holes, but my current method works fine.

Yes I think you are right.

There is a something I read about using silk screening but with out poking holes in it but instead oil to wet the paper set it up on the photo resist and put it in the sun for 15 minutes. I wonder if that same concept would work with PC boards. I have plenty of old photo resist boards. This gets away from the vagaries of heat (yes the toner fuses at 275 to 290 °F and good luck finding anything that can control that tightly) and pressures that can move the traces (doubled sided trouble).

I've always liked the photo resist method and I wonder if going through the pin holed toner traces and through the oiled up paper that it fills in those pesky pin holes. Yep I think it is high time to try that.