Production of printed circuit boards. Tips for a beginner radio amateur

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Production of printed circuit boards. HAM Tips

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Sometimes it is necessary to leave almost the entire foil on the board, etching only the narrow gaps between the pads. In this case, the traditional technology becomes too laborious - after all, it is necessary to varnish almost the entire board, leaving a grid of narrow gaps of constant width.

On a previously degreased foil blank with a drawing pen, pen or other tool, draw all the lines that need to be etched. As a paint, ink is used, in which sugar is dissolved in a ratio of 1: 1.

When the ink dries, the entire surface of the foil is covered with asphalt-bituminous varnish. After the varnish has dried, the workpiece is placed in warm (but not hot) water. After some time, the ink in the places of the drawn lines swells and breaks through the varnish. With a cotton swab, gently remove varnish and mascara residue. After that, the board is poisoned in the usual way.

The described technique is convenient when forming flat coils on the board, various inscriptions visible through the light, etc. In practice, it is possible to obtain etched gaps about 0,1 mm wide. To do this, the thickness of the bituminous varnish should be very small - the color of the varnished board should look like weak tea.

How to make a printed circuit board with a laser printer

1. Prepare coated paper. I take an ordinary magazine (text and pictures are not a hindrance), such as PCMagazine. cut the pages with a paper cutter. Coated paper should be so that the toner is not imprinted into the pile. Imprinted - the villi will remain on the tracks.

2. Print the PCB pattern (etch mask) on a scale of 1:1. the top layer (if any) is in mirror image. I use ProteusVSM, which can save BMP-drawings of boards, and with exact dimensions, I do mirroring with Paint from standard Windows utilities (upload file, make Flip Vertical, save and exit), I print from ACDSee 3.24. In it, you can set the size of the input image and the image will be displayed 1:1. at the same time, sometimes it gets that a small (and even one-sided) board occupies a separate sheet. Therefore, I still use this method: I have a frame prepared in advance in BMP format, the dimensions of which, of course, are known to me. I take it to the same Paint. In another copy of Paint, I open in turn everything that should be printed on the sheet, transfer it through the buffer into the frame and place it there. And then I print with the size of the frame. It turns out several copies or boards on one sheet. Try not to touch the mask (more precisely, its area with the board pattern) with your hands! It is very useful to print one or two copies of the mask on plain paper, for working with a board blank, etc.

3. We prepare the board. I just clean with a fine sandpaper ("2000", you can buy it in auto parts stores, it will be next to paints, putties). Once I had to process the cleaned board with acetone - nothing really was transferred. Maybe the acetone wasn't pure enough?

4. If the board is double-sided, we decide how we will combine the layers. Options: A) on the glass we combine the upper and lower masks, then we cut off the stapler so that we get an envelope - 4 paper clips in the corners and three in the middle of the sides. Then we put the board inside, and seal the envelope with another paper clip. Quite satisfactory accuracy. B) we make a working mask (it is possible on plain paper), put 2-4 position holes on the board closer to the corners (usually there are fastener holes) and position the masks along these holes when transferring the toner to the foil.

5. Transfer. I have a Moulinex iron. turn off the steam, the temperature - to the maximum. We heat up the iron. The substrate is a newspaper folded as it is issued by the publisher. It is advisable to put a sheet of clean paper under it, otherwise you will stain the table. And on her too, otherwise you can stain the iron. Magazine paper does not get dirty. We put the iron on top and wait 20-30 seconds for the textolite to warm up, press it, but do not press it. In general, you just need to feel it - experiment. You will press hard - the edges will spread at the tracks. We begin to smooth it all with an iron. The moment will come when the tracks will appear from the top side of the paper - you can control how everything stuck everywhere. Let's cool down. We turn over, impose, combine the second mask (if we do not do it in an envelope) and similarly. Then let cool. Yes! If you do it in an envelope - do not scratch the sole of the iron with paper clips. You can immediately lightly fry one mask, then turn it over and fry the second one, cut off the excess paper with paper clips along the edges of the sheets (but it’s not necessary exactly according to the size of the board) and continue to direct the marafet.

6. Soak paper. We put a bowl in the sink, put the board in it, let hot water in a trickle so that the board was washed (just to soak the paper more efficiently) and rest for about 15 minutes. . You can erase with your finger, like with an eraser, if the board is large, you can’t get enough fingers, you can rub it with a cloth, I usually tear off a piece from an old duvet cover or pillowcase. Let's see the result. Sometimes paper remains on the contact pads.

7. When drying, the tracks turn white - this is chalk, it does not affect the quality.

8. It is necessary to edit the etched finished board. The toner is fragile. It will break in big pieces.

9. We bully as usual. We drill holes. Wash off the toner with acetone. The washcloth must be taken dry - in the presence of even a small amount of water, the toner is practically not washed off. I don't know why... I came across advice to use paper from the magazine "Audio and Video" (I did not actively look for it, but I have never come across it in passing) and fax paper. If the paper from the fax will crawl through the printer without hesitating - this will probably be the best media for the mask!

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