Continue to Site

Welcome to our site!

Electro Tech is an online community (with over 170,000 members) who enjoy talking about and building electronic circuits, projects and gadgets. To participate you need to register. Registration is free. Click here to register now.

  • Welcome to our site! Electro Tech is an online community (with over 170,000 members) who enjoy talking about and building electronic circuits, projects and gadgets. To participate you need to register. Registration is free. Click here to register now.

Pcb boards

Status
Not open for further replies.

greenJames

New Member
Morning all

well after trying to make a simple PCB board with my CNC machine and failed twice.

I was just wondering if I can use a inkjet printer to make PCB boards

I have bought the blue film if this helps in any way

Green James
 
There's a Yahoo group called DIY _PCB or something like that. At one time it was quite active in developing ink jet printers to print a PCB pattern for etching. Most inexpensive consumer-level ink jets use water-based inks/dyes. It turns out that heating increased water resistance, and yellow was the best in that regard. Commercial ink jets can use solvent-based inks that are resistant to water, but are generally to available to consumers.

I suggest using either toner transfer (laser printer) or a photoresist using your ink jet to print a transparency that will be used as an exposure mask.

John
 
Thank you John
So I could use projector film to print to and then the blue exposure film ?

James

The CNC is cutting away to much copper away esp when it comes to chips and there traces
 
If the blue film you have is the photosensitive kind, then yes, it can be used. The process requires lamination of it to the pcb, exposure to near UV light, then development in a photodeveloper. It is most likely the product you have is a "negative" resist. That is, those areas that are exposed to light will be the ones that are not etched. In contrast, pre-sensitized boards are readily available that are "positive" resist. That means, you print your pattern as you want it and those areas not exposed to light are the ones that will be protected from etching. The developers for positive resists are usually just a dilute solution of an alkali in water.

Just follow the directions you have. If no directions are avaulable, I suggest buying some pre-sensitized, positive-resist boards and use them to avoid frustration. There are a lot of variables that can affect getting successful results with an unknown resist.

John
 
Last edited:
Ok I have now ordered my positive pcb board and etching components also ordered a uv nail drying of ebay as I have a old scanner I can convert to a light box.

I've also down loaded a Gerber viewer so I can print of my pcb board but if I use the solder mask how do I print negative ? is there a special program?

is there any neat tricks to apply a silk print on to the top of the pcb board for a professional finish idea print a projector film in say red with components and then laminate it

Green james
 
If you have positive resist, you don't need to print a negative.

The wavelength you need is about 385 to 400 nm. A nail dryer UV may operate at a much shorter wavelength. I don't know, because I don't use one. If it is short wavelength (i.e., UVB or UVC), it may not work. The main reason for that is the glass plate used to hold the film and PCB together will block UVC (shortest wavelength) and considerable UVB.

John
 
Last edited:
Point taken John I've removed the nail drier from my basket in ebay and replaced it with two 11w uva bulbs onward and up ward as they say


James
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Latest threads

New Articles From Microcontroller Tips

Back
Top