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Direct Inkjet to Printed Circuit Board

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Interesting. I have a couple Epson 320 with no ink that I test it on if the carts will fit it. Not sure what the ink will do to the printer. If I can get one going, worth a shot to see if I can use Eagle to print to the CD tray on a CD (after I find the CD tray).

Not sure I would use my good Epson printer without the real Epson ink though. At the price of the printers, one could get into make boards pretty cheap if it works.

Now if they could get it to drill the holes...
 
The web page mentions a specific (forgot which) Epson printer. Epson is selling them refurbished for $55. That and $65 for the kit has me tempted. The site claims good front to back registration.

The printer claims
Maximum Resolution (dots per inch)

  • 5760 x 1440 optimized dpi
If it would do 1400 by 1400 (real) I would be a happy camper. I have not had much luck with .5mm pitch parts with the HP1006 laser.
 
You can do all of this without that kit. He just took everything from the DIY PCB ML and made it in kit form.

The new thing people are hyped about is the direct print laser, but that looks like a pain as well.
 
I'll have to see if the R280 and R320 take the same ink, since they did not have the R320 listed on the page. Wonder if they have shapie ink in there. I use sharpie pen to touch up on occasion.
 
You can do all of this without that kit. He just took everything from the DIY PCB ML and made it in kit form.

The new thing people are hyped about is the direct print laser, but that looks like a pain as well.
I understand where the technology came from. But I do not see a great ripoff here. Saves the time making the carrier etc. Someone to ***** to if it does not work etc.

With both the HP1020 and HP1006 printers I am having problems at the .5mm pitch size. Every nth pad or line is too close together. I expect it is an artifact of adjusting the DPI to match the printer.

I am thinking more (real) resolution would help.
 
I understand where the technology came from. But I do not see a great ripoff here. Saves the time making the carrier etc. Someone to ***** to if it does not work etc.

Ripoff is a strong word, but my statement is that's nothing new here and there isn't. Everything is just packaged up to make it easier. My point is that if you want to try it out, just get the printer and try it out with some copper clad that's taped down. There's no need to spend $65 to see if it's going to work out. In fact you can use any inkjet printer with a CD tray. One of the inks recommended is given with the part number here:
PCB Resist, InkJet Printing, Epson Photo R220, by Bora Dikmen

I have an r220 and I just might give this a try. That page mentions they used their hot air station to bake the ink. That's always been the main issue I've had is the baking procedure so if I can just run it through the CD tray and hit it with the hot air station for a bit, sounds like it's easy enough to give it a try. I'll have to find my CD tray, though. Never have used that thing.
 
My R220 isn't being used anymore because it's used so rarely the ink constantly gets plugged. Now you got my interested in trying this I took a look for my CD tray and can't find it. Throwing it out sounds like something I would do, but if I can find it I'll try it with the aftermarket inks I have.
 
Don't even need to use cleaning fluid, just distilled water will work for cleaning. The resist has me curious everything else makes sense, though I would be a little wary of the claims of registration marks lining up, I've never had much luck with repeatability on inkjet printers. I don't think Sharpie fluid would work, it's solvent based, ink jet printer ink has to be almost completely water. The primary reason an ink jet printer works is because a careful pulse of heat is delivered to the solution, if the substance it's printing with doesn't absorb that heat in the same manner as the typical water based solutions you could kill the print head in a jiffy.
 
If you need to handle different sized boards, you should be able to mill the appropriate cutout into an old CD.
 
i saw in the market, they were using a mini water bed and a vibrator. the unkject dart is placed with head downwards in a 30mm water level and shake it for 2 minutes. then thet rise off the head and wipe with a fine paper towel
if you press the head across a clean area of the towel
you would find a rectangular dark or a three dot color impression equal to the jet cross section.
 
You can get your required **broken link removed**at pcbmaking.com, simply place your order and you will get your job done quickly in cheaper price with FREE shipping.
 
Hola Svetlana,

Trying to resurrect a 4 years dead thread?
 
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