Making your own Printed Circuit Boards

These hints are worth gold! Some close friends, engineers, technicians and the like were admired with the

quality achieved by this process. Again, the motivation arised after veryfing that in the brazilian market is very hard to find materials for doing an industry-grade PCB at home. There are those nasty pens (using them sucks)...there are transfer sheets ('Letraset' a load of work for doing a pcb) and finally there arent be prohibitive. After doing a good research on the Net and finding out some crazies that were using until coming up with the final solution! Ingredients: A laser printer (It ONLY works with LASER Printers!) A friend of mine did some tests on a Xerox

those special transfer papers, imported and mainly USA made. Even if we got them here, their cost would regular paper and a laser print for doing PCBs at home, I started to test many kinds of materials and papers

copier. It works, but sometimes the toner wont come off the paper when youre 'ironing' the board...

A4 Photo paper. The best brands for experimenting are EPSON and KODAK. Kodak is cool because A good ironing "tool": I use a black&decker...really HOT... =) And some more stuff, check the picture: you can use either side of the paper!

Instead of the electrical tape, use masking tape, since it wont melt...
The first step is to have a PRINTED CIRCUIT ARTWORK. You can get this from the original designer OR use software for doing it. I use and like very much one called EAGLE. Its excellent and freeware (limited for small sized boards and number of pins) and have one of the best part libraries that Ive ever found. You

can get it for free at http://www.cadsoft.de/.The second step is to have the Copper board. Its cheap and the paper glare in the lower part of the picture. The board we are going to use is bigger than the test design showed here, just to demonstrate the process.

you can use one for many projects. The board pictured below is over a PHOTO PAPER SHEET, you can check

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Print your artwork on the photo paper using a Laser Printer. PAY ATTENTION to the design, if needed, print MIRRORED (I confuse myself every time I do this....)

One important note: TRY TO USE AT LEAST 600 DPI for printings. The better the printing, the better your board will come up. If you use a low resolution your board is likely to get "pixelized", that is, with little squares or "ladders" on the tracks.

The artwork pictured below belongs to Brent Danes CLIFFTECH Site and is an R/C Voltimeter which is further explained in this page (portuguese, sorry). Were goin to use as our example.

After printing I trimmed the paper like this. This will ease the task of taping it over the board.Using some Alcohol to completely remove any traces of oil, grease, etc.

kind of thin steel wool, clean the board to remove any traces of copper oxide. After that, use the Isopropyl

Allright, after cleaning your board, grab that hardwood thing, put on a level surface, put the clean PCB over it, copper facing up. Put the printed piece of paper over and tape it like the picture using MASKING TAPE. Try to keep the paper with just a little "tension" over it.

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This iron is capable of leaving BUBBLES on the copper! Believe me, I wasted a couple of boards already. No more than 30 seconds with this guy heavyly applied over the board. On some irons you can use the highest number.

That done, turn up your engine...for the iron. I use an old Black & Decker and the dial on the number 5.

Now, apply the iron over the paper. Dont worry, the paper wont burn. Heat passes thru the paper and paper layer is transferred to the PCB.

the board wiil absorb good part of it, dissipating it. While this happens, the Printing Toner and a thin photo

The time spent on that is short. It ranges from 20 to 40 seconds, Ive been using 30 seconds now with a

different iron than the above. Try to use your body weight on the first "press" (that is, lean over the board holding the iron firmly against it and count slowly to 30). After this, "iron" the board by using the iron tip to slowly and carefully go over all the surface, just to make sure the borders also got "glued" to the board. Note: be careful to dont let the paper spin or move over the board, if it occurs the artwork will be all

messed up and youll have to start over. Just clean the board with acethone/thinner and print a new piece of paper. That is WHY you have to tape the paper with a little tension over the board. Just a little. On the first ironing the paper should stick to the board.

After finishing, TRY TO RESIST THE TEMPTATION of removing the paper, LOL... =) WAIT until it is the hardwood board (which will be also hot).

COMPLETELY COOLED. After ironing you can remove the masking tape and take the whole thing to cool off

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After the board is cooled, you can, CAREFULLY, remove the paper off it. In case the paper is TOO "glued" to the board, you can put on water and let the water help to remove, but, generally that is not needed.

Excellent! The paper comes off the board without leaving almost NO toner on the sheet! Check below.

The board is almost ready to be etched. Correct any tracks if needed. You can use a felt tip pen, the kind with photo paper stuff and eventually wont corrode.

used to write in CD-Rs or plastic. You can also help to clean the pads holes which sometimes get clogged

Dont worry while doing any changes to the tracks sine the toner WONT COME OFF without a good effort! Now put it on a plastic container for etching.

NOTE: IRON PERCHLORIDE can be obtained in Electronic Shops (here in Brazil). I prefer the one in

SOLUTION, since its less work to do and less mess. BE CAREFUL WHILE HANDLING IT: Perchloride

OXIDIZES OR CORRODES COMPLETELY almost ANY kind of metal; it stains clothes, floors, wood, your skin If eventually a bit gets on your skin do not panic: WASH PROMPTLY IN FRESH WATER. It is not exaclty an ACID, but can deeply stain skin if you dont wash right away.

and many more =), but plastic and glasses. Heres my disclaimer... =) Handle it with care so to dont spill.

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Now fill the container just enough to cover the board. Corrosion (like we say here...) or Etching (like you

say there) takes something between 15 and 30 minutes. If the container is gently shaked, it can accelerate the etching a great deal! Temperature also has influence: the solution at 60 degrees celsius has the TOPPOWER effect for etching. You can put the container shown above into another container filled with hot very close, but the hotwater method is better.

water. Etching will take no more than 10 minutes if done this way! In the picture below I used a 60w lamp

You can also stir the solution using a tweezer and the board. Board will corrode a lot faster:

remaining perchloride can poured in a NON-METAL sink with tap open. OR you can slowly put the solution BACK in the bottle. Just be careful to dont spill and to leave the black stuff (etched copper, heavier than wil take a long time to run out of it... =) the liquid) at the bottom and discard it after. Eventually the solution would be less efficient, but at least it

So....your PCB should be completey etched by now. Take if off the solution and flush with water. The

should be like this:

Wash evertyhing that got in contact with the solution. Dry it thorougly, that includes the board, which

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To be able to use the board, you can remove the toner with THINNER, ACETHONE or even with the Steel wool. NOTE: It is better do DRILL the board before remove the toner. Toner also helps to center the drilling while doing it.

. And finally....YOUR HIGH QUALITY HOME MADE BOARD!

Have fun...Im not charging anything for the hints....YET... =)

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