Pirated Press N Peel for Making PCB's

[DJ Delorie]

I remember the old days when people actually looked forward to
getting into the guts of a project, instead of outsourcing so much
of it.

Oh crap, does that mean I'm old?

 

[Rich Grise]

Is your time free? That's amazing, I've got a few projects here for you
to work on!

I don't get it. Is 40$ that much money to get a real PCB made?

Not everybody is making a thousand bucks an hour.

Thanks,
Rich

 

[petrus bitbyter]

People who use the toner transfer method have repeatedly gotten good
results using glossy inkjet photo paper with laser printers. Good ones
will cost you roughly 20 cents each.

The trick is to try lots of different brands to find one you're
comfortable working with. Different types of glossy paper behave
differently. The original method recommends you soak the paper&board in
warm soapy water and slowly peel away the layers of paper. Some work
better with cold water. Some work without soaking - exactly like
press-n-peel. The one I'm using works best if you peel it without
soaking while it's still hot (usually between 1 to 2.5 seconds after I
lift the iron).

Of course, some people feel they shouldn't be using inkjet paper in a
laser printer. Haven't damaged my old HP Laserjet yet.

You not only need the right paper, you also need the right laserprinter. I
once had succes using some inkjet paper and a Laserjet 5000. My own Laserjet
4Si and some other laserprinters I could lay my hands on, do not provide
enough toner to cover the black parts.

petrus bitbyter

 

[neon]

This forum is dedicated to help people not to spend money you may make $50/hour. so what you pay for everything? i be damn if i am going to pay $50 to change a fuse.Making PCB maybe not cost effective as a hobby but if i have an idea to do something i want to see it now not next week and let not forget that a schematic and layout are not simple a board can not work because of unforseen layout problems and if there are changes $40 per PCB is not cost effective. i breadboard first make my own PCB and when totaly satisfied spend the $40.

 

[[email protected]]

Not everybody is making a thousand bucks an hour.

With materials cost and aquisition time, setup, cleanup, and the time
it takes to drill the holes, and no allowance for mistakes, can you
really get it done in less than four hours?

I'd be suprised if there are many people with the skills to design a
PCB who are not earning at least $10/hour. The exceptions might be
teenage hobbyists... which was the last time I did much etching.

 

[RST Engineering \(jw\)]

DJ, don't mudwrestle with the pig. You get all dirty and the pig likes it.

Jim

 

[RST Engineering \(jw\)]

It is trivial. You make a black toner topside mask the same way you make a
black bottomside resist pattern. You iron it onto the fiberglass AFTER the
etch.

Jim

 

[DJ Delorie]

It is trivial. You make a black toner topside mask the same way you make a
black bottomside resist pattern. You iron it onto the fiberglass AFTER the
etch.

Won't it melt when you solder it? I mean, if it worked, you could do
a multi-color mask and get the silkscreen at the same time.

The inkjet masks are heat resistant.

 

[[email protected]]

With materials cost and aquisition time, setup, cleanup, and the time
it takes to drill the holes, and no allowance for mistakes, can you
really get it done in less than four hours?

I'd be suprised if there are many people with the skills to design a
PCB who are not earning at least $10/hour. The exceptions might be
teenage hobbyists... which was the last time I did much etching.

Someone who grosses $10/hr nets only half that after overhead and
taxes, and so could spend eight hours paying for a one-hour job.

I home-brew small, simple boards sometimes for fun, but mostly for
the quick turnaround. For ultra-simple surface mount stuff you just
can't beat it.

Best,
James Arthur

 

[[email protected]]

FeCl is fast if you wipe it on with a sponge instead of just letting
it sit in the tank, even with agitation. You can somewhat control
overetching that way too, by only wiping the less-etched parts.

Of late I've started using the "float" technique, learned from John
Popelish. Just float the board on the warm FeCl etchant, and do NOT
agitate. Convection delivers fresh etchant upward to the board, while
the denser, spent etchant drops downward.

Much slower than the sponge method (e.g. 12 minutes instead of 4),
but it etches much more vertical walls (curing undercutting problems),
and proceeds unattended--you don't have to be there.

Best,
James Arthur

 

[RST Engineering \(jw\)]

Only if you've got a color laser printer. Why would it melt? You are
soldering on the farside and the mask is on the nearside.

Jim

 

[[email protected]]

FeCl is fast if you wipe it on with a sponge instead of just letting
it sit in the tank, even with agitation. You can somewhat control
overetching that way too, by only wiping the less-etched parts.

FeCl to me has 2 disadvantages: first it stains and is "dirty", Acid &
Peroxide are clear and colorless. Second FeCl is comparatively
expensive. Cement bleach is around $1.50 a bottle and Peroxide is $3.00
a bottle. Since the ration is 2:1 I keep 2 bottles of Peroxide along
with my bottle of bleach (besides, Peroxide is also useful as a
disinfectant). I'm still using the first set of bottles I've bought
last year. Though I don't do much etching.

If I do a lot of etching I would have made a bubble tank. Not to speed
up etching but to "regenerate" the etchant with oxygen (actually a
different etchant: CuCl but derived from HCl + Cu while etching) -
saving me even more money. But preparing a solution which can be
regenerated requires more accurate chemistry than my simple 2:1 mix,
just can't be bothered doing it at the quantities I'm consuming.
Professional/Industrial PCB shops use CuCl.

 

[DJ Delorie]

Only if you've got a color laser printer. Why would it melt? You are
soldering on the farside and the mask is on the nearside.

My boards are mostly SMD so the soldering is done on the nearside.

What's the point of having soldermask on the side you're not soldering
on? Or are you thinking of silkscreen?

 

[RST Engineering \(jw\)]

Sorry, I thought you knew that I was referring to the screen legend.

Jim

 

[Ben Jackson]

Only if you've got a color laser printer. Why would it melt?

Careful, many color laser printers use wax instead of toner.

 

[[email protected]]

Someone who grosses $10/hr nets only half that after overhead and
taxes, and so could spend eight hours paying for a one-hour job.

Wrong, unless they are self-employed. Someone earning that little is
in a fairly low tax bracket.

$10/hr. 2080 hours year. $20800 pays about $1500 in federal income
tax.

SS/Medicare still seems to be at 7.5% so thats 1560

Lets say you are in Taxachusetts and pay maybe 6% after SS/Medicare -
$1200
(but it's actually better as you can deduct half of your rent)

And they probably don't have health insurance at that pay rate...

So they are effectively taking home about $8 per hour. If it's a kid
with a part time job, they don't get the personal exemption, but they
probably don't have anythere near full time income, so they would pay
even less tax.

But that assumes that a work hour and a hobby hour are interchangeable
- which of course they aren't if you are working full time. From one
perspective, working 40 hours a week you probably can't afford to buy
the PCB and have to make it yourself. On the other hand, if the choice
is between making the PCB yourself and working some optional overtime,
now you are comparing to a pay rate of $15/hour ($12 after taxes)

 

[DJ Delorie]

Careful, many color laser printers use wax instead of toner.

Mine (HP CLJ 2550) seems to use toner for the colors. At least, it
looks like toner under the microscope and toner transfer paper works
just fine with it.

 

[[email protected]]

Wrong, unless they are self-employed. Someone earning that little is
in a fairly low tax bracket.

$10/hr. 2080 hours year. $20800 pays about $1500 in federal income
tax.

SS/Medicare still seems to be at 7.5% so thats 1560

Lets say you are in Taxachusetts and pay maybe 6% after SS/Medicare -
$1200
(but it's actually better as you can deduct half of your rent)

And they probably don't have health insurance at that pay rate...

So they are effectively taking home about $8 per hour. If it's a kid
with a part time job, they don't get the personal exemption, but they
probably don't have anythere near full time income, so they would pay
even less tax.

But that assumes that a work hour and a hobby hour are interchangeable
- which of course they aren't if you are working full time. From one
perspective, working 40 hours a week you probably can't afford to buy
the PCB and have to make it yourself. On the other hand, if the choice
is between making the PCB yourself and working some optional overtime,
now you are comparing to a pay rate of $15/hour ($12 after taxes)

Yes, I know the tax rates better than I'd like! You omit overhead,
including the time spent preparing for and commuting to work, and a
bunch of other stuff, which I submit brings the matter close to where I
proposed. Two daily hours of preparation and commuting and what-not
yields n=80% for starters. Then subtract taxes, etc.

Even more telling is when _disposable_ income is considered (a more
proper comparison)--money left over after rent and expenses.
High-earners lose lots of their excess to taxes, low-earners don't have
as much left over to spend.

For either case--rich or poor--it's easy to spend a lot more time
buying something than you thought.

In the end, it's only really worth employing someone if they can do
it better/faster/cheaper than you can. If they can, go for it !

I wouldn't think of making a big nasty board myself, but last weekend
I whipped out an 8-transistor, smd, microwatt, picofarad
capacitance-sensor in half an hour with a bit of circuit board and an
etch resist pen. What's not to like about that?

Best,
James Arthur

 

[Archilochus]

You do realize you can put more than one PCB on your panel?

Sure, but with most of my projects I just need 1 PCB. I don't make
enough stuff to group several different board designs onto a single
larger panel.
Sometime I even break out the ol' Sharpie to make a quick & dirty
little PCB

BTW - sorry about the multiple posts - Google went a bit screwy on me.

Arch

 

[Michael A. Terrell]

BTW - sorry about the multiple posts - Google went a bit screwy on me.

Arch

You do know that you can delete the duplicates, don't you?


--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida