"Bob Liesenfeld" wrote in message
...
Me again gang,
I've been torturing myself this evening by drawing wee little lines on
scraps of blank pc board material to make 'headers' for some surface
mount ICs. In the past I've had the usual troubles with the resist
(black Sharpie) being etched away before the rest of the board was
done. I suppose most of us know that warmed etchant works faster than
room temperature juice.
In the past I have warmed my ferric chloride in the microwave. Well
tonight I got a bit carried away. I put about 4oz of juice in a
plastic cup and nuked it for a full minute. Holy smokes! That stuff
was *steaming*! So....."plop" goes my little homebrew surfboard into
the brew. That puppy was fully etched in less than a minute!
The microwave seems to still make popcorn and I am not in a coma (yet),
so I guess I will call it a success. BTW, the Sharpie ink survived
nicely.

I just put the plastic container with the etchant and PCB in a larger
container partly filled with boiling water. Etching usually takes about 5
minutes, with continuous agitation.

73, Leon