I spent a lot of time looking for a company in the United States that carried Sodium Silicate (Na2SiO3) positive photoresist developer. Until today every company I found was in England or elsewhere overseas.

Circuit Specialists sells sodium silicate crystals for resist development:http://www.web-tronics.com/posdev.html

I haven't had a chance to test it yet but I'm going to run a full series of comparison tests between various resists and developers using differents times and temperatures.

Hopefully someone will find this information useful.

 

I've been using it successfully for 28 years. had no idea of the actual composition, but it does form a gel after a couple of days on the developer tray.

The price per is up from $.80 to $.95. The web site is also horrible - if I hadn't known the catalog numbers, I couldn't have found the Ever-Muse presensitized PCB stock.

 

I've been using it successfully for 28 years. had no idea of the actual composition, but it does form a gel after a couple of days on the developer tray.

I'll have to look into that. The liquid silicate developers never seem to gel so I'll do some testing.

The price per is up from $.80 to $.95. The web site is also horrible - if I hadn't known the catalog numbers, I couldn't have found the Ever-Muse presensitized PCB stock.

I'd ordered from them in the past, and yes- the site is horrible. I completely forgot about them until I dug up my bubble etcher and it had their label on the box. I loathe NaOH as a developer so this is something to try until I can get more involved with the chemistry.

-Don