hey everyone , i'm new here

i've decided to take up electronics and i want to know how to construct a printed circuit. I need detailed instructions (what i need, how to etch, how to drill etc). any ideas where i can find those info?

 

Originally posted by Phobos@Jan 20 2005, 10:44 AM
hey everyone , i'm new here

i've decided to take up electronics and i want to know how to construct a printed circuit. I need detailed instructions (what i need, how to etch, how to drill etc). any ideas where i can find those info?

[post=4674]Quoted post[/post]​

Couple of easy ways. Most electronics shops and even Radio Shack have etching kits. You usually use some form of a mask, be it black stick type strips to using a Sharpe to cover up the copper you want to keep. Then for some you put them into a chemical bath to eat off of the other copper, others you leave out in the sun. Just depends on what you want to buy.

Drilling is a pain in the butt. I would suggest you try to keep everything suface mounted unless you have no choice. You can take most DIP8s and just bend the legs out a bit and solder them down without having to drill. if you really need to drill, you're going to want to use a drill press of you have access to one. The tiny bits and proximity of drilling holes makes using a hand held drill rather tough, but its doable. The size bits you would need would most likely be right inside of an etching kit. I know the bits I have I picked up from the few kits I've purchased over the years. If you decide to drill with a hand drill, don't use a vice to hold the board. Take a kitchen sponge or thick cardboard and put it under the board so you have something to drill into when the bit pops through.

Other than that, the rest is up to you. You can find books to explain more as well as webpages, but it all depends on what your intending to do. If your doing something fairly complicated and need a more than 1, just send the design overseas and have someone else etch it for cheap. They will come back etched better than any hobbiest could do. You just got to add the parts.