Test etching PCBs with inkjet transparencies.
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- Опубликовано: 8 сен 2024
- In the past I've tended to make transparencies from my PCB design package using a laser printer and a sheet of tracing paper. This doesn't work so well with the modern fast laser printers, since they use a very thin layer of toner.
I had been using a very old Canon Pixma IP4000 inkjet printer to make transparencies due to its ability to allow multiple passes of the same piece of paper with quite staggering accuracy. But alas, all good things come to an end, and one day the Canon decided to smoke its printhead. The loss of that printer was made worse by the fact it had unchipped ink cartridges that were very easy to refill, were translucent so you could see the actual ink level as you filled them and had an optical ink level detector that reliably informed you when the cartridge was actually running low. You could also physically unclip the print head and wash it for easy maintenance. Truly an engineers printer.
But now I've unwillingly ended up with two EPSON printers that are the complete opposite. Chipped cartridges that contain very little ink, a hard to clean printhead and an appallingly inaccurate paper feed system that does not allow multiple passes.
So this video is about forcing the lacklustre EPSON to produce acceptable black images on transparency film. The tests include non OEM dye ink and non OEM pigment ink in non OEM cartridges with utter contempt for EPSON's desire to sell very small portions of ink at prices that rival the cost of gold by weight.
There are various inks available for inkjet printers in the aftermarket. You can buy cheap and nasty dye inks that fade quickly, or better dye inks that have UV inhibitors to make the image last longer, or pigment based dyes that have a fine suspension of coloured particles to create a very solid image with good aging properties. There are also other specialist inks like dye sublimation inks for printing T-shirts and other stuff.
I did this test with generic dye ink that does fade quickly in sunshine, plus a much better pigment based ink. One day I'll probably try the test with a modern UV inhibiting ink too, but changing inks in a printer from one type to another is always a bit of a chore, especially in fixed head printers like the EPSONs.
I also did some toner tests too, but they were not under ideal conditions.
I tried various inkjet transparency films from ebay. The most expensive was the worst and the cheapest generic inkjet and laser compatible film was the best....
For the UV exposure I didn't use my normal lab-grade Mega Electronics tubes-in-lid A3 exposure system, but instead used a generic ebay nail varnish curing light with four UV tubes and a timer. This was just to see if it is usable as a home UV exposure unit.
The developing chemical I used was sodium metasilicate mixed in a ratio of 12g in 250ml of water. (roughly 1 to 20 ratio)
You can also cautiously use sodium hydroxide otherwise known as lye, caustic soda or drain cleaner if you want to see the etch resist disappear almost instantly (including the tracks) in a swirl of disappointment, leaving you with a shiny piece of blank copper laminate. But the sodium metasilicate is much easier to use, provides more consistent results and can be stored and reused until it is fully depleted. Sodium Metasilicate (water glass) is available from ebay.
To etch the PCBs I used standard ferric chloride etching solution in the extremely clean and convenient Seno GS etching system where the highly corrosive and staining chemical is always kept sealed in a bag during etching and washing of the PCBs. I do have a tri-tank PCB etching station, but for small quantities of PCBs the Seno bag system is extremely convenient.
The results so far? Pigment ink is the clear winner, but dye based ink is still a viable option.
Love the etching bag idea never knew that they existed.
It is neat, but I had really bad results with it, as the photo resist tended to get scratched up and the acid etched these scratches through the entire copper plane. But using the bad to warm up the acid worked really well for me.
@@0xbenedikt Never had this problem
You can achieve better results with toner (from laser printer) with additional step - after printing expose the transparency to acetone fumes. Use big, hermetic jar - just throw the transparency in, add a cotton ball with a drop of acetone, close the lid and wait a hour or two. Grains of tonner will expand a bit and the black areas will be more saturated which should help against pitting.
Other problem - laser printer will heat the transparency during printing. Many transparent films will change dimensions when heated - the effect is not linear and can cause problems on bigger double sided boards - the easiest solution is to "print" empty page and use "pre-shrunk" transparency.
Hi Clive. The process I discovered after much trial and error and many failures with transparencies is to print a reversed image onto standard photocopy paper using a laser printer. Put the paper directly toner side down on the photoresist and expose for a long time period (3 - 4 minutes depending on UV intensity). With a bit of trial and error with the exposure time (varies with room temp) this eliminates the transparency part of the equation and yields excellent results. I use a stack of books on top of the board and paper which are face down in my exposure box to force the toner hard against the photoresist, and the printer set to highest density to give nice opaque blacks. This process works well for very fine tracks also.
+Colin Waterhouse Very useful discovery!
There is something to be said about using a "fixer" spray on photocopy paper coated with toner - the type that renders the paper semi-transparent, like a grease spot would cause. I believe you can get a "proper" spray for this but I'm not sure if it is still being sold.
or just use any oil to make it butter paper. just used cooking oil :P as it was fastest thing I had.
I really like that bag solution :D Never tried home etching, but you make it tempting.
Thank you very much for your informative video! I've just etched my first board using the same UV lamp. Before I tried to use the toner transfer method by printing sheets at the local printshop. But that didn't work very well as the toner wouldn't separate and I couldn't get the right photopaper.
Because of your video I decided to use my own HP inkjet printer (still with the setup cartridges) and have learned that my next cartridges need ones to be pigment based ;-). I printed the circuit three times on a sheet. The UV lamp is held 5 cm above the board using a couple of rolls of duct tape. Illuminating 3 or 4 times 120 seconds works very well.
So now I'm looking at two boards that look very professional :-).
+Jasper Oosthoek Look for the video I did using a newer type of film made specifically for UV transparencies. It is used by the screen printing industry and is a milky colour. It has a thick coating that absorbs lots of ink (dye is best in this case).
+bigclivedotcom Thanks, great video as well!
we've been using inkjet printers to make contact printing negatives since the mid 1990s, and they get the best results. Oh BTW, a blend of colour pigments can be just as UV resistant as a deep solid black saving ink, if you wanted to experiment.
The exposure Unit uses an ne555 for the timing function. If the time is not appropriate for the uv film you can replace the timing capacitor inside to change the interval.
FWIW (and very tardy): Black electrical tape on the 'shiny' side will allow the transparency to work. You can also use a glue-stick to put a little bit of glue on the edge and back it with regular paper. Don't use glass as the top layer. Glass absorbs UV light. Unless you can get Quarts glass (which doesn't absorb UV). Pigment ink will always better than dye. You can't get the density in dye. Toner should be better than inkjet but that depends on the printer. If you use toner crank up the knob on the inside of the printer to get more density of toner. Others mentioned that you should use Yellow rather than black ink. Yellow absorbs blue (ultra violet) in the spectrum.
Hi, recently came to know your youtube channel. I am a big fan of you. I remember, making a Joule thief circuit , 10-12 years ago and how much fun it gave me. Thank for being an inspiration for me and others also. You are definitely "born with a soldering in hand." 😁
For me, tracing paper, toner, the same UV unit and the preset 2 minutes do the job consistantly very well.
UPDATE: Applying oil to the tracing paper and placing a sheet of glas over it really helped to improve the quality.
I also set the timer to expose for 3-3.5 minutes.
I used to use this method back in the 90's making flexible pcbs for the satellite lot.we used a hp 6mp The fr4 student boards could be exposed with the printed side of the film upwards (easier for them to design it) but for really fine finish you had to reverse the design so the finished print was used next to the pcb .Bubble etching (no money for modern stuff then) i could run boards out to 0.5mm ,with diligence at 0.2mm and with occasional shorts at 0.1mm track gaps .Now to get the best results we used negative resist and on some pcb material i had to coat the darn thing because negative version wasnt available some bright sparks wanted pcbs made of copper coated aluminium which was a great deal of hassle especially as one pinhole and the etch eats the ali quicker than the copper! Even cambridge uni sent me their boards they couldnt do ,i just loved the smell of ferric in the morning!
I forgot to mention i used a vacuum exposer cabinet, at such fine tolerencies if the mask wasnt firmly stck to the board the uv could go between the film and board coating and ruin it
When printing a picture the picture will be printed in what is called a half tone
I had to go to a laser printer and build the art work in solid black so when you output the mask it will be a solid instead of lets say a screen of dots otherwise known as a 144 halftone you did a fabulous job on getting past this your a very smart fellow
Thanks for all the knowledge and entertainment if your ever in the states let us know we will scrounge up some opossum stew or racoon fricase
I couldn't get my Brother to lay down enough ink in one go, but after feeding the same inkjet transparency sheet through 4 times it built up an impressive amount of ink that let no light through. Never really completely dried, but it worked great as a mask. I was amazed at how precisely the printer feeds paper through, there was absolutely no offset from the 4 separate passes.
My old Canon printer used to do that. Super-accurate registration with multiple passes.
Heya Big Clive. Thanks for the idea of using a piece of regular paper folded at the end. I use the toner transfer method but my cheapy laser printer doesn't like picking up the glossy paper. I just tried putting in a fold of regular paper and it worked perfectly.
I gave up using Ferric Chloride a while back, due to the mess issues you described, I now use Ammonium Persulphate available from my local Nerd shop. Cleaner and I think faster.
Love your videos :)
Little discovery I made (may be totally specific to my printer): When I print on the side you're supposed to print on, the ink sort of cracks (it looks solid when looking at it from the top, but if you hold it against a light, you can see tiny cracks everywhere), but if I print on the side meant for laser printers (the completely smooth one), I get a perfect solid black layer. Seriously, I can expose the PCB for 10 minutes (I normally do 3 with my setup) and it still comes out perfect; absolutely no UV light gets through.
Two disadvantages:
1. The ink takes a long time to dry (on the order of minutes).
2. It doesn't adhere properly-even if it's completely dry, you can just wipe it off with your finger.
But I find the increased quality is totally worth the bit of extra care I need to take handling the transparencies.
Epsons are just a pain in the a.. . I tried to clean the print head of one with isopropanol with a tube and syringe. It had time to soak for several hours. I still ended up using 2 sets of XXL refilled cartdridges and a hundred sheets of paper for "Print head cleaning". Another one stopped working completely. Just all lights blinking. I took it apart, but no obvious damage.
This video is going to make me create my own PCBs soon. This will be fun!
Adding to all the printer terribleness discussion, I once had a family
printer that would dump toner if you used non brand refils. There was a
clear difference in colour between the border of the paper, which was pure
white and the printable area of the sheet, which was covered in a very
fine grey, even if you printed a blank sheet.
Those Epson menus sure bring back memories of when i used to use this method.
I have an HP PhotoSmart All-In-One 2575v, it’s ancient, but I bought a spare recently at Value Village for $15 because I like it so much, plus more modern printers seem to be designed purposely to make it extremely difficult to refill (not physically impossible, but the printer will absolutely refuse to use a cartridge it thinks is empty or expired), it uses the same cartridges as my portable HP printer, it’s easy to refill (I buy InkTec refill kits on Amazon for $10 which give me six refills). The lovely thing is that I can print using the black cartridge only, and blacks printed in best quality (1200x2400dpi for this printer) are really saturated on plain paper (when visually inspected under 60x magnification on my XP Pen A4 LED light table on the brightest setting [which will shine through twelve sheets of standard thickness multi-use printer paper enough to accurately trace an outline]).
Might have to experiment with transparencies and PCB etching.
I absolutely love when you print the windows hehehe
Who knew sodium silicate has so many uses. Found a lot in pottery as it is a refractory glue and deflocculant for making clay/water mixtures flow better.
Love all your videos, inspired me to fix my kiln controller that went pop a while back, currently found the resistor that let the smoke out but i'll be damned if I can see the colours on it! Wouldn't have thought a resistor would pop with backwards wiring but I am very new to electronics really.
i remember back in college when i was getting started as a design technician someone had been using the rub on transfer tracks and pads on tracing paper,i mention this as i have ordered some 100gsm tracing paper because the many types of acetate and clear film are terrible with my samsung laser printer,i did double up on some small transparencies,i want to make some small pcbs for ultraminiature vacuum tubes,i did mount two tubes onto dip8 sockets and work great ,but i did ruin one tube first try as they use leads and not pins.
So i had the thought about my days in college ,where we also used a pen plotter,but i want repeatability because the tube pcbs are for bread boarding a larger commercial venture where full on prototyping before outsourcing to china pcb houses,and i'm sick of wasting toner and acetate.
Clive, if you want truly opaque try magnetic laser toner. This is used to print checks with require magnetic ink for the OCR numbers at the bottom. If it is available for your laser printer, it might be the densest black you'll find. Not cheap.
Not sure it applies with your software but a trick I used in uni for getting a super-dense black from laser printers was to select the "registration" swatch in Adobe Illustrator or InDesign. Technically you aren't supposed to use it in the document as it is just for registration marks that ensure the colour plates are aligned, however it did the trick for 400% toner coverage.
Hi Clive - just a few points that I've discovered whilst experimenting. I've tried the various types of ink, and discovered that Jet Tec black ink carts in an Epson D92 printer worked very well indeed. Better than the original Epson carts which were filled with a pigment based ink (Ultrabrite?) I'm not sure if Jet Tec used a dye or pigment based ink in their own carts so I can't say for sure on that particular point. The Jet Tec carts I used were not the re manufactured ones but the ones they made maybe 5 years ago before they converted over to the re-manufactured types.
I'm currently using a Canon Pixma 920 series machine using Jet Play cartridges, and the results are every bit as good as the D92 with Jet Tec ink.
I agree with using just plain old generic gel covered ink jet transparency film, but be aware that over time, the ink bleeds through the gel layer and you will lose fine detail, so archiving transparency film probably won't be as effective as toner based transparencies.
Hope this helps...
Have you seen the video where I used a dedicated film made for the screenprinting industry? It's like a transparency with a much thicker ink absorbing layer that gives it a milky appearance and lets it absorb a huge amount of ink giving incredibly good definition with conventional dye ink.
No, I shall go and hunt for it. Thanks for the personal reply :)
Exellent video and cool experiment :)
I Just got into making PCBs myself this year as an extention to my learning electronics, though I've mostly only made simple things amd used the TT method, until recently (I actually get on with TT quite well, unless ground planes are part of the equation then it's useless).
This video coveres something I've been meaning to do myself as I've just made my first exposure box (I also used one of those nail units in your video, an alu briefcase and flatbed scanner for the glass).
So far I've been using a mono colour laser printer and 200gsm tracing paper for the artwork. All's dandy as far as that side of things go, the lines are pin sharp in the etch resist anyway.
My problem is with the photo etch resist itself. Tried negative resist film and found it was thwarted by the smallest speck of dust that would tent the film (orking dust free is not an easy thing to do in ones shed), so starting to investigate pre sensitised board.
The batch I got is a disaster, the resist layer has stripes right across it which I found out are actually thicker. It doesn't expose or develop properly which ruined the PCB and I'm not sure which brand to go for to replace it.
What make of pre sensitised copper clad did you used in this video?
Any recommendations from you good sir would be most welcome.
Unit16Recordings I'm based in the UK and used pre sensitised laminate provided by a company called Mega Electronics. They have been by far the most dependable source of good material.
I tried some of the self-apply resist film and it always puckered and wrinkled horribly when put through the laminator. I think it may have been due to moisture absorption in the film. The bits that did work provided very random and unusable results.
Oh awesome, I'm UK as well :)
I'll give Mega Electronics a shot, many thanks for the reply/suggestion Clive :D
As to resist film, I recently saw a technique whereby the PCB and film were sandwiched between two sheets of paper as it's passed through the laminator. The quality looked exellent but I've not tried it myself as pre sensitised board seems a lot less hastle in practice.
Unit16Recordings Just as an aside, I've found RS Components to be a useful source of pc board processing requirements. They're UK based, but they have a dealership here in South Africa.
We used to have Maplin here as well, but then they pulled out and left their South African branch to struggle along on their own. (under the name Yebo Electronics.)
Use the laser toner printer on paper and iron it onto bog standard FR4. Works well for me. I tend to use Epson Photo Quality matt paper S041061 but have used glossy magazine paper with good results.
+bigclivedotcom
If you are still using the Epson printer, try printing with DuraBrite yellow only! While I had a Epson inkjet that was the "darkest" from the UV point of view.
You can test it yourself - take a blue led and shine it trough the print. You'll see which color blocks the most light.
Yellow is quite hard to see on transparency, but works better than anything I've tried before.
+zlotvorx I had noticed he best way to check the yellow test pattern was with a blue or near UV light source. It comes out very dark.
bigclivedotcom That's why I've recommended the yellow ink. While I had my Epson inkjet that was the most used color. But inkjet is not very economical if only used few times a month. After it sucked up the whole CISS container in a week I switched to laser.
I wonder whether the secret information most printers encode onto the printouts in tiny dots of yellow ink would degrade the exposure.
It's the DuraBrite formula itself that is UV resistant. CMYK printing is inherently little dots in rosette patterns. Yellow tends to get destroyed the fastest by UV. That's why old printed pictures and magazines tend to look blue and magenta after aging in sun exposure. In printing, really one would use one of two additional concepts. Spot colors, where the ink is not CMYK but one single color. You see, the pigments used in CMYK are intentionally small, vivid and spaced apart. That lets enough white paper substrate through to blend in the eye with dots of colors around it. It is subtractive light color after all. Spot colors do less mixing with others and with the substrate and tend to be used for floods of very specific colors. There is also overprinting/a.k.a. saturated blacks. This is where in CMYK to make black blacker visually, the printer is directed to lay on CMY on top of the K to make i thicker. For silkscreening (non-PCBs) using photoresist to burn the screen blocking image, we would just just laser printers. Printing to transparency was nice, but not necessarily more effective than paper.
But to be fair, although Epson does formulate great inks they work very hard to lock things by market to their inks (as do almost all inkjet printer makers). It's a bit irksome, but most consumer printers new cost the same as a new set of ink. Only when you move up to commercial grade and dye-sublimation does that change. Also worth noting the substrate quality you print onto matters tremendously for all forms of printing. Finally, in commercial or fine art archival printing, you'd actually lay down a top coat of some sort of clear stuff like a laminate that includes UV protection.
In case someone is interested: today I have successfully etched a pcb using inkjet printer + plain! A4 paper + uv box (with LEDs) + developer (NaOH) + etchant (sodium persulfate).
Exposure time: 40min
Developing time: 1min
Etching time: 30min
I made the uv box using a 5m led strip of 600 leds.
Printer: Canon MX920 though I think with plain paper, any printer will work.
This was my first attempt ever and it worked so I guess that the times above do not have to be exact.
Good luck!
Oh yeah! Make sure to wear gloves and inhale the chemicals as little as possible. I was extremely careful, didn't touch the stuff but still my hands smelled awfully and it irritated my throat and lungs. Next time I do this, I will setup a fan to blow the fumes away from me. Hope that helps...
Dear Clive may I give you a tip for making very very cheap circuit boards? I make mine with a laserprinter I transfer my circuit layout on photopaper reversed and the I lay down it on circuit board with the printed site down I heat it up with a iron until it's completely stuck to it put it after it has cool down into water until te photopaper comes loose and then after its has dried it turns from black into withe it's the little top layer of te photopaper and put it into the etching dish until al the copper disolved and then you have a copper trace to work with I personally cover it with a layer of old fashion lead based solder before I drill the holes for applying the components. it cost olmost nothing and you don't need a ultraviolet lamp, no expensive solder board and I make ally circuits that way and it works fine.
BTW I am a huge fan of your channel for quite a long time and I have a lot of fun when I can look your next episode of how to, why and so on. my apologies for my bad English but keep up yhe good work you do to inform, explain items which we use in our daily life. Cheers and until next time greetings from your neighbour from the other site of the sea ( the Netherlands ) :-)
you should try ed chews toner and lacquer method.It is awesome.
Watched this video several times over the past year. Acquiring, and eventually disposing of the toxic chemicals are the biggest problems for me in the country where I live. The GS Senno package seems about the cleanest so will try that next, thanks for the detailed review. One question: Would you get more consistent results with the UV fingernail dryer if you placed a diffuser sheet (translucent acetate, perhaps) under the bulb but over the board being exposed, or would that block the UV light entirely? What about closing off the opening where one normally inserts one's hand for nail polish drying?
Bigclive, I just want to say you are awesome!
Have a good day. :-)
love watching your vids, so educating and cool. u're the man!
Really awesome! Hope to see more on this subject! =)
Chris Fredriksson You will. I've just found a specialist inkjet film that I never knew about before and have ordered some to test.
bigclivedotcom Sounds great, looking forward to it! =)
When I've wanted to get black and white images I've used an image editing program (GIMP in my case), chosen grey scale and set the colour depth to two bit. The saved image then only has two values for colour, 000 or FFF. Nothing in the image file for the printer software to mess about with then.
You can also use a trick to use less transparent sheets: print a preview y greyscale, just to see where it lays, then cut a piece of that film and stick it to the paper you just printed with some tape, it's hard to miss that way...
I do that now. I just print the PCB layout on a sheet of paper and then feed it back through with the screenprint transparency film taped over the original image.
You could have had the light twice as far away with 4 times the exposure time for more even coverage.
Also, printer drivers make a *huge* difference RE density of ink on a transparency -
I used to do photo resist/transparency process for silk screens, design/print-studio pro drivers that know you want to do a black only hyper dense print (I used those in early versions of Adobe illustrator), killed the alternatives, liberated the printer and could deliver high density blacks perfect for blanking out, even fine half-toned pixelated areas.
The UV exposure lamp for a larger circuit board has confounded the results of your test.
I really want to get into making PCB's, thanks.
another way to force true black printing is to remove the colour cartridges, just leaving the black one, thats what i do with my HP, if you have the other carts in it tries to mix the black from them, no matter what settings you use.
I've shot myself a used Epson XP-630. I'm printing on laserjet transparencies. I tried different suppliers for transfer film but each time they sent me this laserjet stuff. (I also tried a laser printer indeed but never got a solid-enough black, even with multiple print runs on the same film.) Anyhow. I've found that the printer is very accurate feeding from the manual tray, and also senses the medium mechanically (no literal cheat sheet needed), so the method I am using at the moment employs two print runs. The first one prints in greyscale which uses the text black which I let dry, then I follow up with a colour print using CMY at maximum levels. I am using some unspecified third-party ink, but probably dye-based. The black lays down a somewhat gluey foundation which prevents the colour ink from running too far and ruining track contours. All along the printing it needs a bit of help with drying (hello Yihua 8786D heatgun!), and I must center the print which must also not be wider than about 10 cm, otherwise the print hits two guide wheels which would then smear thin tracks across the print. Other than that, it produces quite a solid mask suitable for the dry film photoresist & sodium carbonate & sodium persulfate washing and etching process.
Try a search for silk screen inkjet film and look for the listings with the milky film.
@@BigClive Thanks, Clive. I've searched again, and I found the stuff even on Banggood now, and at a not too unreasonable price. Thanks for reminding me to give it another go!
On my HP Printer on Linux, I can just go into "Device Options" and select "Black only greyscale".... I'm going to be doing some playing around with some old Epson's soon... I wonder if that option is a Linux/CUPS thing or an HP thing? It'll be worth putting "find out if black only still works" on my checklist.
I've had pretty good results using 120GSM tracing paper and an HP 1215 all in one printer. Exposure time using a mega lightbox and mega brand board was 1 minute with warm tubes. I used to use a Brother HL1450 that worked well till the drum unit developed a fault.
Llamarama100 I used to use my laserjet printer to make transparencies on tracing paper all the time. But alas the newer printers seem to skip on toner density. For the versions I did in the video I had to do some seriously devious things in Windows to send a raw printer language command to set the toner density to the highest possible, since HP don't even bother making such options available in their drivers for older printers.
I always seem to find these days that the quality is not up to what it used to be back in the day. I have an old Epson dot matrix printer that still has it's original ribbon that works, whereas my dad has been through 3 different inkjet printers in as many years. I suppose it's lucky in some respects that it's not about the same price (per board) to send the designs to a Chinese boardhouse, at least for the larger double sided boards. That's once in a blue moon though, The largest boards I commonly make are 12 * 6 inch double sided ones. I've been looking for a cheam XY plotter to try and interface with my PC to draw directly onto cheap copper clad board with an etch resist pen, that seems to be the best of both worlds, cheap results that are reliable and repeatable.
Llamarama100 I tried a Roland plotter a long time ago when they were a common item. The results were patchy. I tried lots of different pens and inks and the nearest I came to a usable result was hampered by the effect you get when you try and fill in an area with a Sharpie. The new ink leaves clean streaks through the already dried ink. At the moment I'm waiting on delivery of a new type of material that may make inkjet printers the perfect choice for transparencies. Up to A3 too.
Great tutorial bigclive, just what I had been looking for so many thanks. What is even better, quiet, clear voice with no background music!
Any more news on the different specialist inkjet film that you found and you were going to test?
One of my friends suggested using CuCl in HCI rather than ferric chloride for PCB etching, so I googled it and found an Instructables page about it. It seems like it might be a pretty good idea, since it's nigh-infinitely reusable, and probably cheaper.
if you refill color cartridges just refill all the colors with black only ink, it wont matter what process the software or printer does, use that all black "color" cartridge for doing pcbs
+Charles lakins Alas, I use the printer for photos too and it';s got a fairly long ink path in the head. I noticed some people who make a lot of transparencies have a dedicated printer for that with the technique you describe, but also sometimes using specific UV blocking inks.
+bigclivedotcom ahh ok I was unsure of your models design some have the heads right at the paper, here in canada printers are a mere $29.. its the environmental fee they charge extra that makes them costly or id have a dedicated one myself, I did have a nice brother laser printer that was found in a bin worked fine for years until it crapped out I miss that one
Hint - Use a pice of sticky tape to lift the corner of the protection film. To avoid scratching the photo layer.
Use two or three transparencies to get a darker path. then place a glass to keep in place, after 1 minute exposed to sun you can get a realy good impresion.
The problem here being the random availability of sunshine. Grey skies are more common.
that would have fit without the huge seperations...
Have you ever tried to print directly on to PCB with a wax printer? If that works, it would eliminate the development step, and you should be able to etch right away.
After all, the photosensitive layer is "just" a form of wax that protects the copper from the chemicals.
Haven't tried it myself, because I don't have access to a wax printer that I could use for this purpose.
Get a little computer fan and cut off all the blades except one and glue it to the exposure tub to agitate the solution automatically. :)
It's easy to make your own developer and ferric chloride. Developer is just sodium hydroxide reacted with silica gel beads and ferric chloride is steel wool and hydrochloric acid.
TakronRust Ferric Chloride is easy enough to get from the average electronic component shop. Anyone that sells copper clad board almost certainly also sells the chemicals to process that into printed circuit boards.
The only consumer source for hydrochloric acid I'm aware of is the pH regulator sold for swimming pools. That's been largely discontinued in favour of the stable pool-acid powder.
In a similar way, pure caustic soda is hard to get these days. Most drain cleaners are now a medley of different chemicals and many are even peroxide based rather than hydroxide based.
So it's just my opinion, but getting the chemicals from the same vendor you buy your photo-sensitive boards from is cheaper, more convenient and safer.
Besides, when something doesn't work you then have somebody else to blame! :P
+Aadil Shah Plumbing supply and concrete shops should sell muriatic acid. 18% hydrochloric acid.
shepd3 Possibly true in the USA. But I doubt it's common here in South Africa. I'm not clear what it would even be used for besides pH regulation in swimming pools.
Plumbing supply stores here generally don't stock chemicals.
But again, my point is that if you can buy copper clad board, you can buy the ferric chloride to etch it. And ferric chloride is generally cheap and a lot safer than most acids.
It's also less likely to get your door bashed in by the DEA.
The most common use for hydrochloric acid and sulphuric acid on the streets is to make freebase drugs.
+Aadil Shah making your own is way cheaper and the DEA is not going to bust down your door for buying acid. lol
How about a teardown and reverse engineering of the UV nail dryer box? I just bought one and it works well for dry film photoresist. Would love to see you take it to bits.
I made a video about it.
@@BigClive oh. Thanks... I'll hunt that down. Thought I'd seen just about every vid you'd done, but obviously not! Cheers.
would have called my print setting "none more black"
Brilliant video. This is just what I have been looking for. Thanks and much love bigclivedotcom :)
One part Muriatic Acid to two parts Hydrogen Peroxide works faster than Ferric Chloride and is a LOT neater to use than FC. It's clear so it doesn't stain. Also much cheaper.
It isn't easy to buy HCL in the UK really so we tend to stick with ferric chloride here. There are places we can buy it, but not at any corner store like you seem to be able to in the USA
Lloyd Dragonforce muriatic acid from swimming pool supply
OK, thanks for the info :)
I wonder how phosphoric acid would work. I have a few gallons
Clear!? It's always turned out a bright orange color once mixed for me, still works none the less.
i got a old printer scanner and fitted nail machine fittings in to it ill up load vid of it
isn't it almost cheaper to have PCBs made in a factory? but I guess only a single PCB making at home would be cheaper. especially if you need it now. and can't wait a week or two! either way I want to give it a go! there other things I'd like to make with this process!!! another awesome Clive Creation!!!
Thank you for your video, it is really helpful, I knew been awhile for this video but I have two questions please:
1-What is the minimum trace resolution we can get? Can we reach to Micro range? If not could you please advise for cheapest method if you have!
2-if we use silver nanoparticles ink and print it directly onto the transparent sheet, is this going to work?
Thank you
Very informative! Could you add some links to the products you bought to the description?
I just ordered a laser printer for the sole purpose of etching PCBs using heat application (it hasn't arrived yet) so the part of the description saying that modern laser printers leave a thin layer of toner is a bit of a concern. However, preempting potential problems, I am wondering if defining the black in the software as C=100 M=100 Y=100 K=100 might provide a solution to the problem of thin toner layers. As the toner acts as a physical barrier, not an optical one, it doesn't matter what colour it is and this would in theory lay down four times as much toner. That said, I have never used a laser printer before but I was a graphic designer for many years and worked closely with printers of the human kind and often played with black definitions for litho printing for various reasons.
Some laser printers put down a thicker layer than others. There may be a way to set the toner density higher.
The reason the full color looked like a deeper black is because the printer is filling in the black areas with ALL the colors.
That PCB solution that you used, do you normally just reuse the same fluid or do you have to get a fresh amount after a few uses?
You can reuse all the liquids until they are not effective any more. Ferric chloride lasts a very long time.
*bubble casually floats away*
ultrasonic cleaner thanx a bunch
I thought pig met and oink ment was the same thing . haha.
This video makes me want to try making pc boards with UV light. I have always used toner transfer method with an iron, but there's a lot of variables and results usually have been "good enough" but not perfect. Is it worth the investment?
By the way - nice etching solution.
Oh and one more question: what kind of pcb you're using? It seems so white and I always had green-yelow-ish ones. Is that because they're for using with UV?
fancy expensive PCBs are white so its easier to see when etching is done
I used a seno gs for the first time today, didn't know about that way that you did. Very small boards (like < 1sq in) are a pain in the butt but it is indeed a very handy and very clean setup.
Million dollar question though: how do you strip the remaining resist off? to get mine off I blasted it in the homemade UV box for 5 minutes and redevelopped it, it left some residue behind because soldering it was a bit of a pain
Acetone can work, or just leave it on and solder through it. The standard pre-coated boards are fine like that.
Cheers, I'll give it ago
I had a bit of trouble soldering through it but I suspect a lot of that is to do with me using the fine tip on my soldering iron, I got the real tip on it now so should be right
Did you also experiment with transferring toner directly to a copper clad pcb? This would eliminate the UV-lighting step, am I right?
PuchMaxi1988 I've never had good results with the toner transfer system. Even when I've tried the multiple variations of it.
bigclivedotcom Thanks Clive, good to know. I won't even bother trying it then. Goodnight!
PuchMaxi1988 I've just had one of my insane ideas. Modify a laser printer by removing all HV electronics and replacing the IR/near UR laser with a UV laser. Insert photosensitive boards and press print.
+Jammit Timmaj I don't think the laser ever touches the paper. It is aimed at the toner drum which creates a little static charge which later picks up the toner powder. One time I tried putting a sheet of copper-clad kapton through the laser. Not even a spec of toner stuck to the copper because the copper is conductive. However, I haven't tried putting the same through with photo-resist on it. Hmmm. Anyway, your UV laser might work if you dismantled the printer and replaced the drum with a roller that drives the circuit board, really really slow.
Dennis Fox
You're right. I forgot the laser actually "paints" the photosensitive drum, and the drum transfers the static charge to the paper.
a question i keep asking myself: could you use an inkjet normal printing paper instead of the (comparatively expensive) plastic sheets? then maybe treat it with something that doesn't carry the ink but makes the paper a bit more transparent; or if there's no such thing just print it from both sides (for better coverage/"soaking" with black) and then expose for longer and/or brighter?
alternatively how about inkjetting on something like greaseproof paper or glassine (which is kinda transparent and you can get it cheaply at the grocery store)?
Clive. This month I think I'm going to start making my own PCB's. Do you have a video on getting started with it, or a list of what I'll need? I only have an inkjet printer, so hoping that will do. Thanks
Yes I did a couple of videos including the one where I did the full nixia lamp build. But I'm not sure if I have a video dedicated to etching a first PCB.
Hi Clive what are those seals called that you use to seal the bag please as I can't seem to find them anywhere I need some for my festool bags lol.
i think you need a better uv setup, something upto a4. I was thinking some old flatbed scanner with the guts ripped out but keep the glass, and fill with the required leds a bell kitchen timer from the supermarket... or go all nasa and use an arduino, or all 70's and use a 555...
I do have an A3 tubes-in-lid UV exposure unit. I was testing other ways to expose the material that others might find more affordable.
Since it was so old to accept unchipped refills you have to wonder if Canon didn't purposefully recently made printer drivers that burn the head of those old ones.
So you take transparencies of different densities, you (tried to) expose them all the same, you developed them all the same, and you etched them all the same and you're surprised when some of them come out better than others? You should have exposed and developed each transparency individually using the optimum settings for each one before declaring one superior to another.
Have you tried toner on photo paper and then ironing it onto a copper board? I read about it on Hackaday a while ago and have had reasonable results. Only stuff up was from oils on my hands.
Byro I have, using multiple passes through a laminator to ensure maximum adhesion. I had an issue with the material sticking in small details like holes in pads or between close tracks and pads. If it was rubbed enough to remove it from those areas it also removed stuff that was wanted. You can also use glossy magazine paper, but it is a bit variable too.
When using the Ferric Chloride do you have to dilute it in water and if so to what concentration? Thanks in advance.
Doesn't glass act as a filter for UV light?
I was just about to comment this
Don't worry so much about it! Glass filter function is very gradual, it's fairly effective for UVB (far UV) and fairly ineffective for UVA, letting usually well more than half of it through on the whole. Now consider that the light in the lamp comes from a luminophore, it's very, very near UVA, just barely outside the visible spectrum. Glass might transmit as much as 90% of it, depending on its overall quality and clarity.
Glass is very much unlike say polycarbonate, which has an extremely sharp UV blocking ramp which is just outside the visible spectrum. Weird how some of these things play out! For a material with such an excellent optical quality, this is outright fascinating.
1_HighDuke
it does some wavelengths of it. not so much what we are used to. like UV a and b. we never hardly come in contact with c its worse. but blocked the easiest .
Have u tried a single bright led? You say led type light but don't seem to realize they are avalible in many wavelengths. I got a 4w 365nm for 35 bucks
Could you transfer a regular black and white photograph this way, experimental idea
It would have to be converted to a series of distinct black and white areas print-style to get a good result. The same process is often used for image etching.
bigclivedotcom thanks for the heads up
Anyone know of a source for this type of pouch etching system here in the United States?
+Bigrignohio I've been able to find clear plastic tubing/thick plastic bags in most hardware stores here in Australia. So I suppose you could make your own system from scratch. Those clips used to seal off the partitions can be found in grocery stores - they're used to reseal cereal/food bags.
@@AF29007 These particular clips here are sold as Turbo Clips on ebay (knock-offs, imitations, and comparable models exist), and for the pouch you should use "layflat polyethylene tubing", "tubular film", and similar terms, but go for the thicker stuff, 100-150 µm is the absolute minimum, otherwise it's just too flimsy and even leaks because it's too loose in the clips.
Has the company that makes the Seno GS bag thingy-ma-jig gone bust?
The only links I found for eBay and Amazon are discontinued.
It does now seem to be discontinued.
1 more wonderfull performance by bigclivedotco.Thx man:)
You ever tried a Chinesium mini-CNC for prototyping? All those chemicals...
Everything is chemicals, including the air you breathe, the water you drink, and the food you eat.
for best results print the mask twice and tape them together for a more opaque black.
if your going to waste most of the film in the trash bin you may as well use up more of it.
nice video, if you used a pigment ink, is it posible to print it in a heat transfer and heat transfer the pigmnet pattern to a normal pcb and then etch it?
No. The heat transfer requires the meltable toner, as that is how the toner is normally secured to the paper in a laser printer.
what should I get to make my own PCBs? I know a few things about the process, however I have never done it and i'm not sure what to ask for at the local electronics shop...
I only know that i need the photosensitive boards, a UV light, and some chemicals, however what chemicals? what is the cheapest but still reasonable way of doing it?
I guess you didn't watch the video.
I might have to Check out Big C live.com, nice work dude, love the etching bag
What about the EPSONs with 5 colours (2 x black) they usually have a b/w setting as well as the greyscale. I have one of these and yes they are a bitch to refill, I will have to try and let you know.
cheap Chinese press n peel, cheap laser printer and a wool setting on the iron for the win
+bigclivedotcom
What are the disposal processes for the ferric chloride and water glass. Do the Manx local government have recycling facilities. This is the only thing that's putting me off making my own PCBs. Do you have neutralization processes that make them safe to dispose of locally?
Thanks
Robert Wood
I know yours is an old post but I’ll respond anyway in case it helps anyone else. Advice I’ve followed was to add plaster of Paris so it hardens into a stable solid waste which can be tipped.
what is the thickest copper commonly available on PCBs?
It's often measured in ounces for a given area, 2oz is a typical heavy copper. For high current it's often better to use wire jumpers.
Hi, I want to ask you about "OBO LAMINATING POUCH FILM GLOSS 216x303 mm 100 mic 100 PCS " could i use this for printing pcb on laser printer or this only for Laminating ?
It's only for sealing documents.
@@BigClive Thanks, I returned the "OBO LAMINATING POUCH FILM GLOSS 216x303 mm 100 mic 100 PCS " to the seller and buy another some white glossy photo paper and yellow paper for laser printer.
hi bigclivedotcom i was just thinking, you could build a etching station out of UV leds strips from ebay, seems logical to me because you could even use a arduino/pic microcontroller with a lcd to set timers and do alsorts of freaky things, however what wavelength of UV light do you need to do this? you can buy 5 metres of 600 led strip at 395nm wavelength for just 15 quid off ebay, and im sorely tempted to go with this as it would give a good spread of light i think.... any thoughts?
The complete nail varnish unit costs something ridiculous like £12 from ebay including shipping. For that you get four high output UV fluorescent lamps, a driver and the timing facility.
tittytwister5251 I've rather been toying with the idea of mounting a UV (technically it's violet) laser module on an X-Y scroller.
With a bit of effort, you could even swap out the laser module for a pc board drill. (that would need a Z axis as well)
@@BigClive If you buy it used, you can get them even cheaper. I got mine for ~5 €, three of which were shipping!
Can you show us how you refill your inkjet printer?
What about printing twice the same sheet?
You can do that, but alignment can be tricky.
@@BigClive My Epson Xp-630 is very repeatably accurate when feeding from the manual tray, even for film, even without cheat sheet. I have not actually tested it, only used it for relatively sturdy pcb tracks. I should print some stripe pattern and analyse the ensuing Moiré patterns for how repeatably accurate the print runs really are.
Why does the circuit board turn white after etching?
The base material is white in this video.
@@BigClive
Thank you, what is the pcb type? or number that you used? White base
@@enngennng5633 Unfortunately it's hard to get now. My supplier has stopped selling it.