Hot etchant
 

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.

72
Bob WB0POQ

"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

Long before the days of Health & Safety In The Workplace,
I worked in the research dept attached to a power station
and we used to boil the FC solution in a saucepan on the
little mains cooker that we had.

Insofar as the saucepan was aluminium (aluminum to the
non-English-speaking Yanks), I am surprise that there was
any "strength" left in the solution to etch the copper!

(Having made the mistake of using an aluminium stirrer in
my own etchings!)

"Bob Liesenfeld" wrote in message
...
I suppose most of us know that warmed etchant works faster than
room temperature juice.

On Thu, 8 Jul 2004 08:55:52 +0100, "Leon Heller"
wrote:

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.

I find that faster etching = cleaner etching, too, with less risk of
the pen marks getting washed away and exposing areas you *don't* want
etched. Maybe there's a point where this rule breaks down, but I
haven't come across it yet and I use a microwave, too. I'm sure my
wife wouldn't approve, but since I don't have one, I can do as I damn
well please! :-
--

"What is now proved was once only imagin'd." - William Blake, 1793.

Ya know, there are freeware programs out there which will prevent you from
going blind -- Eagle is pretty good.

Being that it's the summer you can use a positive-resist photo-sensitive
board -- sunlight has plenty of UV .

I've heard that the peroxide etchants are very good, very clean, but haven't
tried them myself.
Jack

"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.

72
Bob WB0POQ

Bob Liesenfeld wrote:
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.

72
Bob WB0POQ

I've used IR lamps a few inches away from the FC
to heat it, works FB! I've also heard of people
using fishtank heaters (modified to short out the
regulator) as heaters in the etch bath.
Rocking the etch tray also helps, I've built a
rocking stage using a cam and a low rpm motor.

Bob Liesenfeld wrote:
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.

72
Bob WB0POQ

On a related subject...
As anybody used those iron on transfer sheets to make
pc boards using a laser printer or photo copyier?
There was a brand call blue..something or something..blue
I forget the exact name. I used a sample of this a few
years back and it worked much better than the kind that
relied only on the toner as resist.

"Ken Scharf" wrote in message
. ..
Bob Liesenfeld wrote:
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.

72
Bob WB0POQ

On a related subject...
As anybody used those iron on transfer sheets to make
pc boards using a laser printer or photo copyier?
There was a brand call blue..something or something..blue
I forget the exact name. I used a sample of this a few
years back and it worked much better than the kind that
relied only on the toner as resist.

I've used Press 'n Peel Blue film, it works fairly well. Glossy paper works
just as well and is a lot cheaper. I use the standard UV exposure technique
with very good results.

73, Leon
--
Leon Heller, G1HSM
http://www.geocities.com/leon_heller

"Ken Scharf" wrote in message
. ..
Bob Liesenfeld wrote:
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.

72
Bob WB0POQ

On a related subject...
As anybody used those iron on transfer sheets to make
pc boards using a laser printer or photo copyier?
There was a brand call blue..something or something..blue
I forget the exact name. I used a sample of this a few
years back and it worked much better than the kind that
relied only on the toner as resist.

Hi Bob,

I don't know if this has already been posted, I tuned into this thread a
little late, but you should check out this link:

http://www.fullnet.com/u/tomg/gooteepc.htm

I was using transparencies from the local copier place, but this method
seems to work much better.

Joe
KB1KVI