Anyone tried making PCB with 3D printer?

Thread Starter

Lumenosity

Joined Mar 1, 2017
614
I have several 3D printers and one has a 12v, 445nm laser.
I have never made a PCB and I don't really like all the chemicals.
Has anyone tried making a PCB with laser etching on a 3D printer?

I've searched Google and YouTube and it seems it's a promising technology, but not mature enough to try yet?

If that's not feasible, have you used a 3D printer in ANY aspect of making a PCB?
 

philba

Joined Aug 17, 2017
959
There are people/companies doing experiments laying down conductive material in a 3D printer but I don't think it's ready for prime time.

On laser etching - it's possible but depends on the power of your laser. I wonder how well the FR4 (or other material) will hold up under the heat of vaporizing a copper layer. Haven't looked into it because I have far too many projects now.

Take a look at light CNC machines. Lots of people are milling PCBs with fairly inexpensive gear. However, this has a lot of the same drawbacks of home etching: resolution, no plated-through holes, no solder mask, no silk screen. Given that you can get very inexpensive, professional, high quality PCBs made in a week or less, making PCBs at home has limited appeal to me.
 

philba

Joined Aug 17, 2017
959
They call that "scratch and sniff". It's a fairly old way of doing it. It can be pretty effective when tied to a CNC device. I've seen laser toner dissolved in acetone as the resist - a sharpie is hard to get a good uniform layer.

By the way, this is a great example of why I generally dislike videos for getting information. He spends more than 5 minutes showing the scratching - which becomes obvious after about 10 seconds. That whole video would impart the same amount of info if it was about 60 seconds long.
 

RichardO

Joined May 4, 2013
2,270
I should have mentioned that you can use spray paint as a resist and blast it away with an IR Laser. Still needs nasty chemicals to etch the PCB, though.

I have never done this so I don't know what line widths and spaces are possible.
 

philba

Joined Aug 17, 2017
959
I should have mentioned that you can use spray paint as a resist and blast it away with an IR Laser. Still needs nasty chemicals to etch the PCB, though.

I have never done this so I don't know what line widths and spaces are possible.
A laser should be able to do pretty fine resolution. I agree on the nasty chemicals point though Ammonium Persulphate is not nearly as bad.
 
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