Homebrew PCBs

Yes, Steve I think Stefan is correct on the usage of the color inks on
the later C8 series.

Back to the PC boards and the inkjet process - I have struggled for
two days trying to produce another PC board but to no avail until
about an hour ago. 
A little history if what transpired first. I seems that everytime I
fed a cleaned PC board into the inkjet I would get very small pools of
ink - the ink was not dispersing on the PC board. (I remember
distinctly not seeing that on the sample resolution board I had made,
photographed and uploaded.) Upon etching the resultant board would,
with magnification, have runs that looked like a childs connect the
dots puzzle. In other words were ever there was one of these small
pools there was enough ink that when cured would be a fine resist. But
adjacent to these pools there was not enough ink remaining to form a
resist. What had I done differently on that test board? I went back
through the process over and over in my mind, yes old minds work a bit
more slowly... I found the wipe that I had used in the trash, it had
the consistancy of a lint free paper towel that I used as a final wipe
(after dipping in iso alcohol) but seemed different. Well what I had
done was grab a dried out "Simple Green All Purpose Wipe" that had
been laying on the bench from who knows what. Quickly I prepared
another test board and as a final wipe before inking the board used a
new Simple Green wipe. Viola the deposited ink laid absolutely smooth
on the PC bd stock. Cured it, etched and CNC'd, ready to stuff now. I
can remember thinking at the time I was getting the small pools that
some kind of surfactant was needed but what to use. I am not a chemist
, so cannot explain why this works, just glad it does! I am also sure
that this is not the best answer either but it sure a step in the
right direction. Perhaps some of you that are more in the know can
come up with a better solution?
If any one wants pics let me know and I will take some and upload.
John










--- In Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com, "Steve" <alienrelics@...> wrote:
>
> --- In Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com, "Stefan Trethan"
> <stefan_trethan@> wrote:
> >
> > On Tue, 19 Sep 2006 20:16:33 +0200, Steve <alienrelics@> wrote:
> > 
> > > More info: Epson uses some kind of resin coating on the Durabrite
> > > color inks. But not on the black. Since the resin coating is there
> > > just so Durabrite pigmented ink will work on glossy paper, if you
> > > specify Glossy paper it will not use any black ink at all, instead
> > > mixing colors to get black. But if you use settings such as Matte or
> > > plain paper, it will use all four colors.
> > > Steve Greenfield
> > 
> > 
> > I have not found that to be the case (no black used for glossy paper  
> > setting) although it will do that for transarency.
> 
> I found the info on InkjetArt.com, looking at it again it was
> specifically for the C80. Maybe Epson changed the ink used in later
> C8x models.
> http://www.inkjetart.com/c80/better_blacks.html
> 
> Steve Greenfield
>