is there a liquid coating I can immerse my printed circuit board in before etching that would reinforce the etch resist marking pen marks and prevent it from dissolving during etching. www.ronaldarjune.com
How would you keep the liquid only on the ink?is there a liquid coating I can immerse my printed circuit board in before etching that would reinforce the etch resist marking pen marks and prevent it from dissolving during etching. www.ronaldarjune.com
If you wreck one, you wreck one. No big deal. Learn what wen wrong and try again. Expect to generate a little garbage.That's what I am using, a Sharpie. I am thinking about the Integrity of the ink became less dense which caused it to dissolve during the etching process before. My paranoia indicates that the virtual size of the marking pen marks expanded and reduced the density of belief and I am seeing an illusion that nothing is different. It seems that trust in reality and truth is working against me.
That looks great. When all the components are soldered on, do you use some kind of protective varnish or lacquer to protect against corroding?Here's an example:
I have an old HP pen plotter and tried it several times early in my DIY efforts with poor results because the etch resistant pens were too fat to get good results. Also, any lack of board flatness caused problems.Most often, I simply tin the traces to protect them. I put the solder on the traces prior to populating the board & remove it with solder wick, leaving them nicely tinned. It uses up a bit of solder wick, but I'm OK with that.
Here's a different board (an R-2R DAC) which shows the result.
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DesignSpark has pen plotter output. I did something similar with the pens but I couldn't find the industrial fine points several years ago.Here's a pic of the pen I use on my plotter for homebrew PCBs. It's a "Sharpie Industrial" with an "Extra Fine Point". If they made them in the "Ultra Fine Point" style I would probably use that, but they don't. You can see in the inset that the point is about 0.5mm, so that's the minimum width of trace I can make with it. The holder is an old, expired plotter pen which I gutted to hold the Sharpie. It's quite the kludge, but it works pretty well.
As I said previously, my plotter is an [old] HP 7221T. I use a mechanical CAD program [also old] to generate the HPGL data. Surprisingly, the program actually has a driver for the 7221. I would love to use EagleCad to design the PCBs, but I have no plotter driver for it. When I design a PCB to be manufactured, I use EagleCad and OSHPark.
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Here is a picture of the etched board. Some traces dissolved.Post a picture of what you're trying to etch.
What I do is to minimize the amount of copper that needs to be removed by using fill.
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Post a picture of what you're trying to etch.
What I do is to minimize the amount of copper that needs to be removed by using fill.
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Using copper fill to reduce etch time might help, but I don't think you're going to have much luck trying to hand draw. Drilling holes will be a nightmare without holes etched in the pads.Here is a picture of the etched board. Some traces dissolved.
Using copper fill to reduce etch time might help, but I don't think you're going to have much luck trying to hand draw. Drilling holes will be a nightmare without holes etched in the pads.
Other methods to consider: toner transfer, rub on transfers for the IC pins (if they still make them), manhattan, point to point wiring, stripboard, etc.
0.0625" is too big; there will be no pad left. You need something closer to 0.03".I will drill the board tomorrow with a 1/16 inch drill bit.