crossup
Dec 04, 2004, 04:55 PM
Since an inkjet printer was not only all I have but I dont have access to lazer toner unless I buy it, I decided to try it despite the info I could find here saying it doesnt work. Let me be clear, I talking sensitized photoresist here not plain board.
Anyway, I used my EPSON Color 880 printer with transparency film from Staples " 3M Multipurpose Transparency Film" to print a postive mask. Its designed for use in Inkjets, Lazers and copiers. Its basically dual sided, the inkjet side has some pretty serious texture perhaps 400 grit sized. It holds inkjet standard ink like a big dog!! I set my advance options for my EPSON to max brightness, contrast, saturation, maxed my CYM sliders and told it to print color, my black was like 2,2,2 which I did in Photoshop using the paint bucket tool, so that it printed in color rather than black cartridge. I also used the 2880 dpi resolution(Im sure thats a highly interperpolated mode but regardless, its prints detail beyond the resolution necessary here by a good margin). The result was opaque even to the sun, no light spots or pin holes and it was dry immediatedly.
So I did as Comatose suggests and used a quartz/halogen work light to expose my media using the mask made above and turned out that with a 250W bulb at 4" it takes 15 minutes to expose my Injecterall PCB. My first attempt kinda failed as the exposure process heats the pcb up to 150 deg F or so and dummy me just chucked it into the developer which stripped the resist off the hottest part of the board regardless of exposure :eek:
Next attempt I chucked the exposed board into the fridge for 5 minutes warmed with my body to ambient and then gave it 60 seconds of developer.
Etched it and she is BEAUTIFUL...definitely the equal to most commerical boards I see in quality stuff, and light years better than the cheap Chinese stuff common today. I forsee no problem with structure as fine as we we need for our most micro circuits. I made a JDM programmer board and 2 Linear Tech LiPo charger on chip boards on this test etch, they have traces only .010 aprart and the lines are perfect under the highest magnification I have. My guess is the resist is as much the limitation as the mask involved here.
FWIW, the temp did not seem to hurt the mask, it did not try to stick either.
For me this method is the bomb despite the $28 cost for 25 sheets of the tranparency film- so what if I have a life time supply?
Sorry for the crap webcam pics...file size limit here makes them worst then they have to be...mask, board with 3 etchings on it, developer ruined 1st attempt....
just realized someone here had giving me encouragement said it would take like 5-6 attempts to get what I want... its nice to be lucky and even nicer to be able to contribute here. Major ****e eatin grin here right now! So much fun and its even legal.
Oh yeah, the Linear Tech etchings are 20x35mm the JDM programmer, approx 35mm square to give you an idea of scale
Anyway, I used my EPSON Color 880 printer with transparency film from Staples " 3M Multipurpose Transparency Film" to print a postive mask. Its designed for use in Inkjets, Lazers and copiers. Its basically dual sided, the inkjet side has some pretty serious texture perhaps 400 grit sized. It holds inkjet standard ink like a big dog!! I set my advance options for my EPSON to max brightness, contrast, saturation, maxed my CYM sliders and told it to print color, my black was like 2,2,2 which I did in Photoshop using the paint bucket tool, so that it printed in color rather than black cartridge. I also used the 2880 dpi resolution(Im sure thats a highly interperpolated mode but regardless, its prints detail beyond the resolution necessary here by a good margin). The result was opaque even to the sun, no light spots or pin holes and it was dry immediatedly.
So I did as Comatose suggests and used a quartz/halogen work light to expose my media using the mask made above and turned out that with a 250W bulb at 4" it takes 15 minutes to expose my Injecterall PCB. My first attempt kinda failed as the exposure process heats the pcb up to 150 deg F or so and dummy me just chucked it into the developer which stripped the resist off the hottest part of the board regardless of exposure :eek:
Next attempt I chucked the exposed board into the fridge for 5 minutes warmed with my body to ambient and then gave it 60 seconds of developer.
Etched it and she is BEAUTIFUL...definitely the equal to most commerical boards I see in quality stuff, and light years better than the cheap Chinese stuff common today. I forsee no problem with structure as fine as we we need for our most micro circuits. I made a JDM programmer board and 2 Linear Tech LiPo charger on chip boards on this test etch, they have traces only .010 aprart and the lines are perfect under the highest magnification I have. My guess is the resist is as much the limitation as the mask involved here.
FWIW, the temp did not seem to hurt the mask, it did not try to stick either.
For me this method is the bomb despite the $28 cost for 25 sheets of the tranparency film- so what if I have a life time supply?
Sorry for the crap webcam pics...file size limit here makes them worst then they have to be...mask, board with 3 etchings on it, developer ruined 1st attempt....
just realized someone here had giving me encouragement said it would take like 5-6 attempts to get what I want... its nice to be lucky and even nicer to be able to contribute here. Major ****e eatin grin here right now! So much fun and its even legal.
Oh yeah, the Linear Tech etchings are 20x35mm the JDM programmer, approx 35mm square to give you an idea of scale