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Offline tonyyebTopic starter

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Best way to make home made PCBs?
« on: October 14, 2007, 11:17:42 AM »
Hi all

I bought an electronics kit from ebay and would like to make another. But as the parts came to a 1/4 of the kit cost I wanted to know how easy/cheap a PCB could be made at home. Plus i can then make other stuff from info on the net.

Cheers
Chris (aka tonyyeb)
 

Offline motorollin

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Re: Best way to make home made PCBs?
« Reply #1 on: October 14, 2007, 11:37:48 AM »
Not quite what you're asking, but why not convert the PCB layout to stripboard? Then you can just buy a cheap piece of veroboard and use that as the base of your project.

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moto
Code: [Select]
10  IT\'S THE FINAL COUNTDOWN
20  FOR C = 1 TO 2
30     DA-NA-NAAAA-NAAAA DA-NA-NA-NA-NAAAA
40     DA-NA-NAAAA-NAAAA DA-NA-NA-NA-NA-NA-NAAAAA
50  NEXT C
60  NA-NA-NAAAA
70  NA-NA NA-NA-NA-NA-NAAAA NAAA-NAAAAAAAAAAA
80  GOTO 10
 

Offline tonyyebTopic starter

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Re: Best way to make home made PCBs?
« Reply #2 on: October 14, 2007, 11:49:55 AM »
I thought about that but i would like to makes cases where needed for these projects. Plus i just want to make my own PCBs.
Chris (aka tonyyeb)
 

Offline Anthomatic

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Re: Best way to make home made PCBs?
« Reply #3 on: October 14, 2007, 12:15:58 PM »
I don't think making your own PCB's would be cost effective unless you are making them in large quantities.

I used to work with electronics and all the PCB's were from another company, although we had the facilities to make them ourselves. Time and cost were probably a factor.
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Offline tonyyebTopic starter

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Re: Best way to make home made PCBs?
« Reply #4 on: October 14, 2007, 02:37:30 PM »
I only want to make the odd one every so often. Ive found a few cheap kits. Thanks for the input guys.
Chris (aka tonyyeb)
 

Offline odin

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Re: Best way to make home made PCBs?
« Reply #5 on: October 14, 2007, 04:18:30 PM »
UV light and acid is basically what's needed, I'd say.

Offline Oliver

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Re: Best way to make home made PCBs?
« Reply #6 on: October 15, 2007, 02:20:32 AM »
Have you looked for 'direct toner transfer' method?

This way doesn't need any photolithography. Basically, you use either a black and white laser printer, or a photocopier, to make a print of your circuit layout onto colour photo grade paper, which produces something like an iron on transfer.

If you do a Google search for 'direct toner transfer PCB', you will find lots of hits.

You still need to etch the copper from the board, so you have to know a bit about chemical safety, but it's not too bad with the products currently available. You can get purpose built etching tanks, with in-built heaters, and airaters, which should work well, though I've not used them. Try to use ammonium persulphate rather than ferric chloride, for safety reasons.

If you have a friend who's done it before, then try to get some help.

As far as cost goes, the PCB is often the most expensive component in a circuit.

Good luck.

Oliver
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Offline trekiej

Re: Best way to make home made PCBs?
« Reply #7 on: November 25, 2007, 06:37:50 AM »
I hope this is not too far off topic.
Is making multilayer boards a matter or sandwiching two boards together with an insulator in between?
Is it something more involved?  Does anyone know of a good book on the subject?
Thanks.
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Offline nBit7

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Re: Best way to make home made PCBs?
« Reply #8 on: November 25, 2007, 10:57:21 AM »
Quote
Is making multilayer boards a matter or sandwiching two boards together with an insulator in between?

Yes

Quote
Is it something more involved?

Yes.  Through Hole plating for one.

Quote
Does anyone know of a good book on the subject?

Do a search for multilayer PCB process.  Here is one site with a fairly detailed method:
Multilayer PCB Prototyping
 

Offline Oliver

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Re: Best way to make home made PCBs?
« Reply #9 on: November 25, 2007, 02:01:13 PM »
Quote

trekiej wrote:
Is making multilayer boards a matter or sandwiching two boards together with an insulator in between?
Commercially produced multilayer boards are done this way. There are copper traces on insulated sheets, which are fused together. Various materials are used. Something like fiber glass can be used for this.

Home made dual layer boards can be done from double sided blank copper boards. It is quite tricky though.

One needs to be able to pass signals between the layers of the boards. Vias are the normal way to do this, but you may be able to get away with running wires around the edge of the board (not a great solution, for various reasons).

Using vias requires one to have the layouts for each side of the board to be very well aligned. Doing this by hand, probably requires quite large pads to be used for vias, with a generous amount of clearance around the pads, to allow for a little error.

A via can be made by drilling a hole through the board, and inserting a solid pin through, which is soldered to pads on each side.

The trick is to have the layout patterns aligned well to start with. I achieved this by ironing on my top layer first, then drilling a few holes, then use these holes to align the transfer for the bottom layer. You need to user a transparent toner transfer, or a transparent photolithographic sheet.

Generally, if you are doing double sided boards, then one would be using mostly surface mount components. Having some through hole components is OK, but if there are too many, then one side of the board will be lost to holes and pads.

Home made boards usually won't have very narrow traces, and quite generous clearance, which makes some surface mount packages unavailable.

Good luck, and have fun.

P.S. All the info you need is available online. Make sure you understand the safety issues, though.
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Offline trekiej

Re: Best way to make home made PCBs?
« Reply #10 on: November 26, 2007, 05:40:44 PM »
Thanks, I plan on doing my own electrolysis .  I am not for sure what the thickness of the substrate is.
I want to use about .030 inch for the upper and lower layers.  I would vacuum bag it before I apply copper.

Good day.
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Offline Oliver

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Re: Best way to make home made PCBs?
« Reply #11 on: November 27, 2007, 07:38:46 AM »
Quote
trekiej wrote:
Thanks, I plan on doing my own electrolysis .  I am not for sure what the thickness of the substrate is.
I want to use about .030 inch for the upper and lower layers.  I would vacuum bag it before I apply copper.
Hi,

Would you be able to explain this process? I'm curious to know what the electrolylitic process is for. Are you talking about nickel plating the copper? When you write "apply copper", is this a method of chemical deposition of copper traces, as opposed to etching out spaces in a copper clad board?

Oliver
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Offline trekiej

Re: Best way to make home made PCBs?
« Reply #12 on: November 29, 2007, 02:51:26 AM »
I do not know if .030 thick boards can be found with dual copper already applied.
www.thinktink.com talks about the process of making boards,including multilayer. A copper spray is used to make the boards conductive and then it is plated.
I was planning to make my own boards with acid copper electrolysis.
It will be a while before I can give some real experience info.

edit: Nov.30,2007
Sorry, I am still in the experimental stage myself.
Does anyone sell .030 inch double sided boards on the web?
Thanks.
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Offline amiga92570

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Re: Best way to make home made PCBs?
« Reply #13 on: December 04, 2007, 02:36:56 AM »
Best results I have obtained from home made was when I was in school and worked at a hospital. I would draw the circuit in lead pencil and have the X-ray tech shoot it. It results in a super sharp photo mask for your board. I made many boards this way and it was great. I no longer have the X-ray facilities so now I just send them out. I miss those days of experimenting all day long. Don't make any cracks about medical costs going up either, that was like 30 years ago.  :-D
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Offline Oliver

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Re: Best way to make home made PCBs?
« Reply #14 on: December 07, 2007, 10:52:13 AM »
Quote
trekiej wrote:
I do not know if .030 thick boards can be found with dual copper already applied...
edit: Nov.30,2007
...Does anyone sell .030 inch double sided boards on the web?...
Why are you concerned about the board thickness? Are you doing particularly high frequency circuits? Do your boards need to be particularly robust, or conform to a particular form factor? The thickness is rarely an issue worth considering.

I had a brief look at the Think & Tinker site. I found it a bit too dissorganised to scan through it quickly, but I think their processes are rather elaborate.

What kind of circuits are you designing? Usually, quite simple processes are sufficient for beginner to intermediate home made PCB's.

If you are doing more complex designs, or releasing a significant number of boards, then home made usually doesn't work out too well.

edit- spelling  :-(
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