I tried cold toner transfer on glossy coupon flyers from McDonalds,
but they failed to lift from the paper. Looking around for paper that was "glossy but flexible" to print on, I also found and tried a Techni-tool catalog cover, a CVS Pharmacy sticker backing, and an Avery address label sticker backing. All failed. So I'm postponing my cold toner transfer tries until I can get some Office One "Business Gloss" 32lb. 92 brilliance glossy paper Roland F. Harriston reported worked well awhile back.
Meanwhile, a bunch of my circuit's artwork piled up on a pile of ORACALl 651 vinyl stickers. So I got out the iron & did some that way.
My first impression looked good. So I etched it with ferric chloride and tinned the traces with Tinnit solution. It looked great. Until I looked a little closer and notice I'd forgotten to print the pads on this through-hole board. D'oH!!!! But it had another major flaw -- an unwanted trace shorting out 3 pins on an opamp chip.
So I re-ironed the board by following Adam Kohring's instructions to the letter:
Print Your Own Circuit Boards
EXCEPT I ironed it on for 5 minutes, rather than 2.
It worked. The traces are well-defined. However, about 30% of their
interior is lacking toner where it ought be. Does this mean I need to
buy a new toner cartridge to replace the original one I've been using for
11 years ?
Well, on October 3, I removed the old image and ironed another one on, following Adam Kohring, since I had two more artwork prints. This time I used a timer to ensure I only ironed it 2 min.
It failed. Maybe I didn't hold the iron still enough for 20 s.
Maybe do it for 30 s. However, I DID NOT get the voids in the traces
that I did last time. That's good.
My third try WORKED! YAY! The traces are about 95% covered on
their interiors. I just gotta remember:
2 min. in oven -- 30s holding down the iron--2 min. total ironing.
I will go over the tiny holes w/ Sharpies.
I couldn't really do the holes using the 3X magnifying lens. They
were too hard to see until I put them under the 10X loupe.
Oct 14
I just went over the tiny holes in traces using an ultra-fine tipped
Sharpie. My Vision Technologies VT100 19in. CRT magnifier is inval-
uable for this purpose. I saw holes in the toner as big as
0.005185 of a 0.086 in. trace, or 0.0004 in. That's about 0.4 mil.
I filled 'em in with my ultra-fine-tip Sharpie.
WIlll etch it tomorrow,
Alan