Homebrew PCBs

I would get a laminator or modify a fuser from a printer/copier to make  
one.
For me the inconsistency went away after using that instead of the iron.

ST


On Sun, 23 Jul 2006 06:00:47 +0200, sethkoster <sethkoster@yahoo.com>  
wrote:

> I'm still having trouble getting really nice transfers, I've seen some
> of the pics here so I know that it is possible to get very clean,
> solid traces.   My minimum trace width is 10 thou and my maximum is 50
> thou, with most traces being 25 thou.   Strangely, the breaks are
> almost all on the 25 thou traces with a few on the 50 thou traces.
> The 10 thou traces usually come out very nicely.   When I'm prepping
> the board:
> I'm scrubbing with a green scrub pad in 4 directions (width, length
> and both diagonals), around 5 - 10 times over the entire board in each
> direction (basically until it really shines and I see no spots at
> all).   Then I scrub more lightly in a circular motion.
> I'm washing with acetone on a paper towel and my last wipe with
> acetone generally has virtually no color to it.
> During all of this I am wearing latex gloves.
> I use canned air to lightly blow off the dust and I then cover the
> board with a clean paper towel.
> I then put on new latex gloves and cut my paper to size, affix it to a
> piece of regular paper with Avery label and print my image, lay it on
> the board and iron it for around 3 minutes (moving the iron a lot
> because the image is bigger than the iron).
> I wait until the board has cooled and then place it in water (a little
> warmer than room temp).
> When the paper mostly slides off I take out the board.
> Any ideas why I am still getting broken traces?   Anyone near the Ann
> Arbor, MI area willing to let me watch them do a transfer so I can see
> if theres something I'm forgetting?   I've tried various photo paper,
> magazine paper, Reynolds parchment paper (seperated from the toner
> nicely but lots of broken traces), and the backing for Avery labels.
> I'm thinking maybe because the iron is so much smaller than the PCB
> I'm making that I am not getting a continuous enough heat transfer.
> Anyone tried modifying a waffle iron to do the transfer with?
> Thanks.