Re: Re: Plotters for application of Etch resist

For occasional boards which are not too critical I have had some success
with using laser prints directly. Do a dense black print in reverse of the
layout and then iron this into the board using a hot domestic iron. If the
print is dense enough, the board is clean and the print is fresh, you can
get quite a good transfer which will resist the etchant. Its not a prefect
method and, sometimes, large areas need a bit of touching up with a resist
pen, but its usually good enough for prototype boards.
--
Ian W. Wright
Sheffield UK

----- Original Message -----
> From: Jon Elson <jmelson@...>
>
>
> Yeesh, what a way to drive yourself nuts! It just isn't worth the hassle!
> I use photographic techniques to do this. The direct ink on copper is
> VERY tough to get right, and the ink is always drying up in the pen.
> For small 2-sided boards, and for larger 1-side ones, you can use a
> laser printer output, and either contact print the paper output onto high-
> contrast film, or make the laser print directly onto transparency film,
and
> then contact print that onto th dry-film resist made by DuPont, under the
> Riston label. You can get the boards pre-sensitized with this stuff, or
> you can laminate the resist yourself. The limitation with laser printers
is
> that the registration of 2-sided artwork will not be good enough for
> most components with boards much larger that 3" square.
>
> I made my own laser raster photoplotter for this purpose, but I wouldn't
> suggest anyone else do this unless you are planning to make a lot of
boards.
>
> Jon
>