Hi,
After a couple of years of ironing on P'n'P blue, I managed to find a laminator on ebay for £15, 'pre-modded' for PCB's (looks like he just removed the paper guards). The results are superb. I takes 1.6mm PCB stock, around 8-10 passes, and produces the cleanest traces time and time again.
I got quite good with the iron - preheat the board, pre-tack the design, slowly even it out - to the point where 8mil tracks with 6mil spacing was a regular thing, but it usually took several 'partial peelings' to see what hadn't stuck, and went over it again. Using an iron became a hassle.
For those who have considered a laminator, I'm using the Heatseal H212, which is pretty much stock. Works with 0.8mm and 1.6mm PCB's, heats up in around 5 minutes, and doesn't appear to get hot enough to actually 'melt' toner, so it doesn't smear - where traces get wider, they never get thinner, so always make your traces thinner than you intend.
Looks like 0.5mm pitch IC designs are now regularly achievable, so I'm abandoning any possibility of using UV. The only downside is any dust/hairs/fluff/steelwool across traces can ruin things, whether that be inside your printer, or when exposuing/ironing - but that goes for any method - PnP or UV exposure.
This isn't a 'show-off' thing, just to say that, with blue P'n'P, a half decent laminator, one can get consistent, reliable results without having to concentrate too much (I just sat with a coffee putting the board through the laminator for 10 minutes). Hopefully the more 'success stories' there are, the less people will have to experiment to get things right. This example was the first laminator job. The fuzziness I suspect is more down to my 600dpi printer, compounded by my weak etchant taking over 45minutes to etch it (faster etching = cleaner lines). But its a usable board, next one will be double sided
Edit: Thanks for moving this post admin, I keep forgetting theres a PCB design section...
After a couple of years of ironing on P'n'P blue, I managed to find a laminator on ebay for £15, 'pre-modded' for PCB's (looks like he just removed the paper guards). The results are superb. I takes 1.6mm PCB stock, around 8-10 passes, and produces the cleanest traces time and time again.
I got quite good with the iron - preheat the board, pre-tack the design, slowly even it out - to the point where 8mil tracks with 6mil spacing was a regular thing, but it usually took several 'partial peelings' to see what hadn't stuck, and went over it again. Using an iron became a hassle.
For those who have considered a laminator, I'm using the Heatseal H212, which is pretty much stock. Works with 0.8mm and 1.6mm PCB's, heats up in around 5 minutes, and doesn't appear to get hot enough to actually 'melt' toner, so it doesn't smear - where traces get wider, they never get thinner, so always make your traces thinner than you intend.
Looks like 0.5mm pitch IC designs are now regularly achievable, so I'm abandoning any possibility of using UV. The only downside is any dust/hairs/fluff/steelwool across traces can ruin things, whether that be inside your printer, or when exposuing/ironing - but that goes for any method - PnP or UV exposure.
This isn't a 'show-off' thing, just to say that, with blue P'n'P, a half decent laminator, one can get consistent, reliable results without having to concentrate too much (I just sat with a coffee putting the board through the laminator for 10 minutes). Hopefully the more 'success stories' there are, the less people will have to experiment to get things right. This example was the first laminator job. The fuzziness I suspect is more down to my 600dpi printer, compounded by my weak etchant taking over 45minutes to etch it (faster etching = cleaner lines). But its a usable board, next one will be double sided
Edit: Thanks for moving this post admin, I keep forgetting theres a PCB design section...
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