Making pcbs

I buy directly from the manufacturer because I am concerned more about freshness and quality than price-point.  I cannot imagine a scenario in which a sheet of PnP blue is going to figure significantly into the total effort.

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Their press if pricey, but it has worked well for me and seems to be of stout manufacture.

I buy directly from the manufacturer because I am concerned more about freshness and quality than price-point.  I cannot imagine a scenario in which a sheet of PnP blue is going to figure significantly into the total effort.

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Their press if pricey, but it has worked well for me and seems to be of stout manufacture.

Way better pricing on the press n peel - I will give this a try too.  Thanks.

The press is a bit pricey - It looks a bit like a t-shirt press... or is it?  Fran Blanche used a similar press in her video.

The PCB materials look OK - do you buy from here too?

Have you used any photosensitive resist pcbs?  The boards here at the local electronics store are $5.95 for single sided positive resist 114mm x 165mm (4.5" x 6.5")

Finishing? Solder mask?  layout?

Thanks for your great input, by the way. Everyone has been very helpful.

With regards to you earlier comment "PCB milling plus hole collars is the way to go nowadays if one insists" can you describe your process if you don't mind? Is your mill an expensive one?  Any idea of running cost? Any info would be great.  Are hole collars what they sound like ie an aid to implement double sided boards?  Excuse my ignorance... I have skipped over DIY PCB making by going the out sourced route and I am ignorant to many aspects of DIY PCB to my regret.

Regards

Terry

Glad to be of service to you sir--good luck in your endeavors!

Everyone has their preferred method of PCB fab.  Every time we add a layer of complexity, we open the door to problems, I think.  In psychology we know that some seek complexity for its own sake, perhaps as a refuge.  They are said to be in a 'perfectionistic regress.'  One of the things we seem to monitor in e- is our own mentalities.  Just trying to say that the more we try to do everything, the more we are exposing ourselves to hidden costs.  Some years back, my son was etching, went to check its progress in the garage, and made the mistake of taking his safety glasses off before shutting off the lights.  Inexplicably, he pivoted around in turning off the lights and a drop of etchant, propelled by the aerator, happened into his eye. This was rather a fluke, he was steps away from the unit, musta been a perfect storm.  We washed out his eye in the sink and sent him to the hospital, which by the grace of the almighty is right down the street.  He was okay, but the experience was upsetting to his mother and myself.

You can use photo-resist, I have, it works, in some cases the developer is diluted lye, which isn't too bad, but represents one more problem.  My finding was that I was generating the artwork by laser-printing on acetate in the first place, so using photography in the process seemed to be an extra layer of complexity for which I could not divine any reward.  But that is just my opinion.  Buying the pre-coated boards was expensive, coating them myself was a hassle.  I don't, myself, use the cheapest foreign board houses.  Using high quality on-shore providers assures me that they are probably not major polluters.  They etch with 10% nitric acid which they recycle.  They recover the copper.  The problem with dumping copper down the sewer, not that I am accusing you of planning that, is that it is a nutrient.  Bio-films bloom and clog the pipes.  I know the workers are protected because they use closed-cycle machines.  IMHO, the photo method is more appropriate for hand-made artwork on acetates, using ink and tape and lith-film, a method most were happy to dispense with upon the maturation of computer graphics as a technique to achieve this purpose.  Optimally, one uses a vacuum-frame for the exposure, expensive.  Then you will end up with some kind of actinic light set-up to clutter up your garage when you just want to retrieve a grill or basketball.

As far as milling goes, the machine is expensive, and if I owned one, its duty-cycle would be low.  If I knew lotsa well-heeled interested parties in my vicinity, it would be cool to own part of one as part of a collective.  Some people are working to have equipment such as this associated with public libraries, a movement I applaud: clap, clap, clap!!!

After you etch, often you must drill.  Most PCBs are fabricated from fiberglass-epoxy.  Make sure to set up a little vacuum cleaner nozzle C-clamped to your drill-press table to suck up the dust.  I have a small wet-saw to part my boards, using a shear would probably be cleaner.  Vector corp, IIRC sells these little sleeves that make it like you have plated-thru holes.  Small carbide drills for PCB work are brittle, expensive and short-lived.  They cannot handle the stress of use in a regular drill-press, one has to employ either a small one, or use a special adapter from a tool-house.

Routine accounting practices attach a high cost to business for each line-item they inventory.  You could wind up with all of this stuff.  I live in a relatively chi-chi semi-urban neighborhood.  It is hard for any enterprise to justify the ground it sits on, around here.  If you have plenty of space, not so much of a problem.  I have about ten thousand dollars worth of metal drawer-cabinets for my stuff.  Much of my inventory is in a state of semi-obsolescence.  Alas!  In for a penny, in for a pound.

how about this level of home made pcb ?

Simple UV technology, with good mask, and dynamask for soldermask. works just fine, but lot of work. Now i switched to OSH Park

... wow!  Passionate about this are ya?

As I mentioned in a previous post, I have at my disposal, a metal dealer who can rid me of the horrible stuff.  It costs little to me but a little time cleaning his PCs of malware once in a while for which he is grateful. Nothing underhanded and I would never dream of throwing a concoction such as this down the drain.

I will try my hardest to avoid buying equipment that will cost me more than I save for the sake of convenience... besides, the other half won't let me bring any more "electronic stuff" into the house or garage. This is why I ask about it here where I suspected there is a large combined knowledge in these matters. Unless I can build it, I may have to skip the mill.

Thank you for sharing your experience and your knowledge.  Your son's near miss shows he was very lucky that night.  I have heard that "Accidents don't just happen, they are caused" but it is hard to see anything but bad luck in what you described. I am glad your son did not damage his sight.

With regards to the sleeves, I assume they are available in different sizes? Also I was hoping to craft a high speed drill suitable for the pcbs. Something with a bit more accuracy than the cheap bench drill and a bit more control.  Maybe an xy table which could end up milling and drilling. It will have to use parts I have collected from various inkjet, laser and old dot matrix printers. Some of the older stepper units have some pretty decent torque.  I won't need all of them for my telescope mods.

You sound like you are talking with a lot of experience behind you.  Thanks for letting me benefit from it.

Regards

Terry

" ... wow!  Passionate about this are ya? "

When you like what you do, and you don't have anything better to do, you can spend 5 days or even more to make pcb, and solder it.
but OSH Park cost is so low, and quality is so high, that is possible to use BGA256 case in 2 layer board without a problem (this pcb has same functionality, but is much more flexible, and everything is on board)

my advice if you live in USA, just use OSH Park for pcb. Usualy what you can do is limited by pcb technology, and this board is BGA + 0201 smd parts, so you can do quite a task

Any details on the technologies you used?

UV I know - I used to use it for curing certain lacquers and paints.

dyna mask - what exactly is this and how is it used?

Thanks

Terry

Simple UV photo-resist + mask. The trick is to get very high quality mask, and double it. print only in black, no other colors (give better edge) I go into press and they use large industrial Xerox printer, not some Laserjet from HP

Dynamask can buy from ebay, info could be found in google. Again, trick to get good soldermask is to use double or tripple mask, for same high quality printer. 1minute UV expose for dynamask, and 4 for Photoresist. Etching is in FeCl3

The reply was addressed mainly to Don but anyone posting in this thread can make that claim!

I am in Australia - most board costs are high due to the postage not the boards themselves. Although I see quite a few places now showing low or no postage. OSH Park appear to be one of the latter.

I started this thread thinking I would find advice solely on making my own pcbs but I am getting just as much advice pointing me back to out sourcing my boards albeit at cheaper rates than I am used to.

Now I don't know whether I want to experience the thrill of producing my own PCB using "modern" DIY techniques, putting up with the burning funes, burned fingers, stinging eyes and cut hands  or go through the excitement of waiting at my letter box for my perfect, silk masked, solder masked, two sided plated through hole fibreglass gold plated PCB.

I know its not hard for those who have done all this before and as much as my brain is saying "Just do it the easy way!" and now that the playing field of Out sourced vs DIY seems to be more evened, can anyone shine anymore light on DIY before I go one way or another?

***** Red Face Department ***** I just watched Ben Heck's video - I just caught up!  - and it is on etching PCBs no less.  I swear I did not know. But I guess I have now seen it done by he who is without fear of etching solutions (no gloves!).  I think I will bite the bullet once more, just so I can say I have done it again and did it better, I hope.

Any more advice?? I still have at least 10 hrs before I go down to the local electronics store and get hold of some blank PCB etc ...

Thanks for the info, Linas

I will see if I can get hold of some DynaMask if I take the DIY path

Regards

Terry

well, you should do one or two pcb yourself, just to know how it's done. for simple task i make my own pcb, usually for dip type circuit. same apply for large single side smd circuit.but when you have complex task, i go for professional made pcb, like from OSH Park. if you pay 25$ shipping, you will get pcb in 2 weeks.