Homebrew PCBs

--- In Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com, "fenrir_co" <fenrir@...> wrote:

Much Thanks! -- And more thanks on the reply to the previous laminator 
questions (read them when they came in). I've got that spray paint 
here already.

BTW- If anyone didn't see it, Pulsar also had something in their tips 
area implying that Sharpie ink will indeed take that green TRF (a 
concern of mine). Not sure how well. I guess we'd have to see it. 

Stefan (if you're here)- Are you talking about the "etching" of both 
sides at once, or the transfer (where I have the trouble)? If the 
latter, doesn't all the new heat and pressure,etc. jeopardize the 
fragile paper/toner and all, already on the back?   

I know everybody seems happy with it, but that .03 board thing just 
seems sort of weird to me. My current assortment is something like .
048 for the SS, and .093(!) for the double-sided. I'm not sure I'd be 
into bumping down to any thinner stuff just yet, especially not with 
boards that I'll have controls or buttons on.

It sucks that there aren't more DIY details on those sort of things 
out there. It looks like we jump from little rinky-dink plastic office 
appliances (basically "misusing" them), up to painstaking electrical 
modifications of mid-sized commercial stuff, which also wasn't 
intended for PCB's. No offense to anyone here. I may very well end up 
moving to one of the laminators myself soon. It almost sounds like 
with the surprising results some of us have gotten lately with the old 
iron techniques, plus the news that Pulsar had about the lo-tech dowel 
method, then with all the weird grills, heaters, presses, and 
everything else out there, somebody would've come up with something 
solid and simple.

I used a thick, red rubber roller from a Xerox or something, I 
destroyed at work long ago, to make a drum finishing machine. That 
thing and an electric typewriter I dissected have brought me two nice 
rollers, molded onto solid metal spindles. I'm wondering if just a 
basic iron (or heating element), with a smooth flat aluminum base, 
mounted upside-down in a stand, could be used with one of them, in a 
height adjustable attachment, maybe with a knob or crank locked onto 
one side of the roller's spindle? Main differences, I guess, would be 
the temperature, and the feed rate (which shouldn't be hard to 
control). I can't see the temperature of a cheaper laminator being all 
that consistent anyway, plus we'd be dealing with as much torque as we 
needed (hand/arm powered), and the roller/pressure system could be 
much higher without straining any "man-made" motors. Also, the iron 
base area is probably closer to most board widths, than a device made 
for a sheet of paper.

By some act of God, I happened to have an old fuzzy picture of the 
roller thing on a CD under the desk here-

<http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y193/Jidis/roller2.jpg>

Hard to see, but it slides up and down in the grooves inside this 
thing-

<http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y193/Jidis/front.jpg>

The spring loaded thing with the caster wheels is just for drums. Any 
PCB contraption could obviously be much smaller than all this junk, 
but even with stuff that big and the varieties in the depth, it wasn't 
hard to work out that "grooved" thing for adjustments. The roller is 
just mounted with a couple steel "L" brackets, with enlarged drill 
holes.

Here's a group shot of the big electric typewriter roller and a lamp 
and the aluminum-clad iron and a plastic dinosaur-

<http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y193/Jidis/rolleriron.jpg>

The red roller has a nice "grip" to it. It's slightly softer, and the 
rubber's about an eighth inch thick. They're both solid as crap, and 
quite long. The black one is about 15", the red is over a foot. I 
don't know what their thoughts are on heat, but I'm guessing that 
copier the red one was in, must have had a bit.

Admittedly, I've got NO knowledge of laminator (or even laser printer) 
guts. Is a flat, smooth, heated metal bed, and a rotating, cranked, 
rubber roller anything at all similar to what would be in them (aside 
from the better controlled feed and temperatures)? I guess if Stefan's 
"both sides at once" suggestion means what I think it does, the 
laminators are doing consistent heat from both sides simultaneously?

Sorry for all that text,

George