what is your best tools for your printed circuits :
- Softwares if you use for the design ?
- what paper or plastic phot if you print it ?
- what photobox (home made joint a picture, please) if you did ?
- what product did you use (board, revelator, acid, ...) ?
- If you didn't your circuit yourself, where did you order ?
thanks
Yup
DipTrace or Eagle (I use both for different reasons)
Use REAL toner transfer paper (starch-based) --I have never had good luck with photo paper or magazines (others will tell you differently)
I have no idea what the hell a “photo box” is (something for photo-reactive coatings maybe?)
I use whatever blank board I can get cheap on ebay
I use Feric Chloride from Radio Shack
Now, that said, I will never chemically etch another board as long as I live. I can mill boards more easily on the CNC --but really, I don’t do that either. Unless I need something RIGHT NOW, I use DorkBot PCB for slightly more expensive boards (but a 2 week turn around) and I use itead studios for all my super-cheap-but-takes-a-month boards (my production boards)
My first attempt
I used gEDA, toner transfer paper, a clothes iron, hydrochloric acid and peroxide. My boards came out about half good. 
Seeing as it was my first time, I figured I would overproduce to improve my chances on getting enough good ones.
1. KiCAD2. toner transfer
1. KiCAD
2. toner transfer paper
3. none - laminator to transfer the toner to the copper layer
4. Feric Chloride
5. prototype self made and then order in Taobao. 3-4 days for less than 500 pieces.
thanks for your lantern, I
thanks for your lantern, I found this website to help me too.
Unfortunelly I don’t have the laser toner printer … yet … lol … she is going to not be happy … lol !
SHE will just get over it
With the time SHE will just get over it, don’t worry… I guess 80% of us are facing the same problem
Curious
How did you go about putting the holes in your board? Drill press? Steady hand and a dremel? Hand drill?
We always use our more or
We always use our more or less steady hand with this hand drilling machine:
Picture:
I use DipTrace for
I use DipTrace for schematics and layout. I’m probably one of the few that likes the auto route :-). I also have Eagle installed but that’s only used for converting layouts to DipTrace.
I get my board made by http://iteadstudio.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=19_20&products_id=173 as I’m usually in no rush. The quality for its price is great.
Ps. As an LMR member you can get extra pins for your DipTrace installation (from 300 to 500).
When are you using Diptrace
When are you using Diptrace and when are you using Eagle?
Is there things you can do one that you can’t do in the other?
- EagleCAD.- Various color
- EagleCAD.
- Various color print pages from our free local rag. HP laser printer for the toner deposition task.
- No photobox needed for ghetto-style toner transfer.
- 1 oz. copper clad, 1/16" thick, single and double sided. Heat supplied by a tabletop electric range. Ferric chloride etching solution from Radio Shack. A thick ziplock baggie in a container big enough I can continuously run warm water into. I shake the bag to keep the oxygen in soltution and to agitate the whole thing. Real hands on.
- I often go through dorkbot for my personal boards and for real small circuits and seedstudio for my larger runs/prototype products
A couple pics of my various exercises in PCB making:
My QLF board simmering in the sauce.
One of the many 1.5" doublesided boards for my hexaspider project.
Single sided board for the LED brain in LMRbot.
The big double sided mainboard for LMRbot. It never was right to begin with but I was intent on finishing the task.
Eagle for designingPhoto
Eagle for designing
Photo glossy paper for printing toner onto via old Brother printer with toner quantity set to maximum.
transfer to PCB with clothes iron(I have an old one that gets extremely hot, new clothes can’t handle it, it melts solder…)
Mix Chloridic acid + hydrogen peroxide
Put it outside in the sun so it warms up a little
Put PCB in, wait like 1 or 2 minutes.
Wipe with water
Drill with drill bits from 0.5mm to 1mm, 0.5 and 0.7mm are for resistors and capacitors, 1mm is usually for connectors.
Then I remove the toner with steel wool, I recomend using fine steel wool, the thicker one is rough.
I do the silkscreen the same way except I print it onto the top layer, so I know what pin is what
Examples:
Attiny2313 SOIC to DIP adapter:
Toner printed onto photo paper
Copper:
(looks rough because of the thick steel wool)
PIC serial port programmer:
paper slipped a little, it sometimes happens, but it turned out okay.
Silk screen for arduino -> 74HC595 -> LCD board:
Results sometimes change, you have the let the toner really heat up, generally if it was properly transfered you're fine, but when it's really hot you might slip by accident.
@geir
Its pretty simple, really. I still prefer DipTrace and I use it as my “standard”. Eagle however, has a plugin you can add that will ouput G-code (for the CNC mill) directly. I can mill from Diptrace, but I have to import the file into another program as deal with it as if it were an image (convert and send to the CNC). With eagle, I just draw up the board, hit “run” on one menu item and one minute later I have g-code files for the top, bottom and drill layers of the board (ready to cut).
Eagle cad and I use dorkbot,
Eagle cad and I use dorkbot, now known as oshpark.com. Great turnaround, and great boards.
I bit her !I when to my
I bit her !
I when to my local thrift store (my alibaba cavern) and comeback with a HP laserjet 4200 for $22 !
The print look like I need a new toner (clear band vertical), but for 22 buck, if that doesnt work, should be a fun scavenging time !
yeeeeepeeeee
in case, I found that on EBAY
