BradC: I have seen your socket inthe photo some posts above. It is like the the ones I have suggested on the previous page, isn't it? I never had problems with this kind of seckets. I also use a discrete tip for this (not to small), the solder wire is thinn. When you touch the bottom and solder becames liquid you touch the pin on the top side with soldering wire. It starts melting immediatly because is thinn. While you are supplying the wire you move/push to the pad. As soon as the first melted material is on the pad you have heat transfer also to the pad. The operation takes slightly more (less then a second) then the usual soldering on the bottom plane. I use a 60W soldering iron with digitally controlled temperature, weller, nothing special
Alright. I had a chance to do a limited amount of playing with my Christmas toy (PusarFX PCB in a box). So far.... mixed success. The process, when it works looks like it will do quite well. The problem right now is the "when it works" part. I setup to etch a tiny bit of scrap board last night and I'm impressed by what is possible. The first attempt was looking good, a few bits from the outer edge floated up to the surface but the inside stuff seemed to be sticking well. Then I tried the foil and upon peeling it back huge chunks of the toner came off with the foil. I may not have allowed enough cooling time. So I scrubbed it off and started over I gave it 4 passes through. This time I let the foil cool longer and it almost floated off the board and left a pretty nice image of the tracks in place. I proceeded to etch (I suck at judging that) and after a few minutes of checking and more etching I seemed to have a good set of traces. Even the hatched ground plane came out nice. One track with real narrow spacing next to ground plane did have some shorts but I think the clearance was less than 10 mil. I did a little damage inspecting it and trying to separate the reset track from the ground plane. So the chips in the track on the left are due to that. The dark patches are the copper leftovers on the back side of the board.
Thinking I had the basic idea I set off to transfer the top image to my real boards. It all went downhill from there. The toner refused to bond no matter how many passes I made. 4, 6, 8 ,10 whatever. I would drop it in the water and in seconds most of my traces and pads were floating at the top. I was about to give up and call it a night when I tried one more time. I rescrubbed the copper and re-printed the top layer and ran it through about 8 or 9 times. This time there were again a few bits floating in the water but they were the tiny board outline edges not the traces or pads. I dried it off and ran it through a few more times with the TRF foil and this time I got a usable transfer on the top layer. Next I need to drill some alignment holes for the bottom layer so I can register the art for that layer properly.
Before I go farther I think I will try to up the heat from the GBC laminator. It's the H-65 model they recommend but it seems clear the toner is not fusing at the 130C it's reaching. I have changed the fuse to 240C and will get the new thermostat switch from mouser for 157-160C. It doesn't use electronic control for sensing the heat like some I have seen modified, it uses fixed temperature switches that open and interrupt power to the heater it seems. Hopefully with more heat then the process will involve fewer retries. I think it would behoove Pulsar to look at getting a device made to spec to do this vs. the hit-or-miss deal with off-the-shelf laminators. Some people repor tno problems and some never get it to work with the H-65. I see people make some really fantastic PCBs with this kit but it seems in those cases they often have had to mod the laminator to get it a bit hotter to really get it done well. My printer is an HP CM1017 with real HP toner so the toner should not be the issue.
Well see when my too-expensive (had to mail order it) thermostat switch arrives if that helps or not.
One idea I had was to print the top layer with tiny holes to help center the bits and make it less critical to use just the size bit that the footprint did. I will leave out the holes on the bottom to make it less critical with alignment. Hopefully that will make drilling more successful. We'll see. I can see some light at the end of the tunnel here though. I'm a step closer to getting my stepper driver off the ground and actually moving something with the testing this breakout will allow when done.
Ok, I got the new thermostat switch in the mail today. Mouser was fast! I installed the new high temp thermostat and prepared for great things. Improvement but not exactly the results that others were seeing. 3 or 4 passes still left bits floating. At 8 passes I get good adhesion but another problem develops, the tracks start to mush out. The TRF makes it worse on the high setting. That however was rectified by switching to the low setting for the TRF foil, much better results. Now a little disappointed I broke out the test page they send with the kit. Printed on known good equipment. When I ran that through a few times the results were close to perfect. I got all the traces and holes and the patterns all came out clear. That seems to point to my printer being an issue here. I may contact them and see what they use to make the test pages. Whatever it was the results were beautiful. However this process will still work for me I think. I made and etched a second board (top side only at this point) and once I had the number of passes and settings down I could make it work repeatedly. Now it's time to drill and register the bottom layer (easy as pie I'm sure :P ) and I'm off to the races!
The [noparse][[/noparse]top|left] board was done tonight, the [noparse][[/noparse]bottom|right] was my final result after multiple tries with the lower temp on the laminator.· While the current process is more reliable to actually get the toner to stick, the first board shows the crisper lines... where they stuck.
Post Edited (photomankc) : 1/3/2010 7:10:16 AM GMT
Hrm, my H-65 had a little PCB on the right hand side under the switch with some electronics on it. A couple of 33k resistors later and I had 170C. Guess the international models are different.
I had the best results by far by laminating and etching both sides at once. I drilled a couple of registration holes and put 1mm PCB pins through them to register the artwork before taping down both sides and running it through the laminator.
I've most certainly been getting toner smear, so I'm still a whisker too hot I think. Certainly got much better results after mortgaging a kidney and buying a genuine HP toner cartridge. The refilled one the printer came with was utter rubbish.
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Life may be "too short", but it's the longest thing we ever do.
Yeah, I was all set to use your mod but when I opened it up the little board had two real low value power resistors not the values you mentioned then I ran across the description for US made "Cheap#$%@" laminators on the Ultrakeet site that showed the thermostat switches and sure enough that's what I had. The switches make or break the connection to the heating element. No other electronics really to speak of.
What are PCB pins? I was planning to do something similar by making four center drilled pads at the corners to use to use to line up the second layer with the same holes drilled in it's paper.
I'm going to see what the minimum number of passes I can get away with is. I started with 3 and jumped up to 10 and have been backing down to see what I still get good adhesion with. Fewer passes should mean less smear. I'm actually using genuine HP toner on this but there is definitely something different between what they use for the test print sheet and what I have. The test print stuck like glue and even through multiple passes the fine detail was almost perfect. Right now 15 mil spacing would be the razors edge for me. 10 mil will sometimes smear together. Still as long as I know the rules I think it will be very useful to validate something I want made in bulk or provide for a few copies of something one-off.
I'd be very interested to hear what Frank comes back with as the printer he uses for the test sheets. He's always been very responsive when I've mailed him, but I never actually thought to ask which printer he uses. I find the toner coverage on my 2200D a bit patchy, but then I'm using a very heavy ground planes and lots of toner. Frank recommended using a hatched ground plane to reduce the toner use. Apparently it helps the printer cover.
I highly recommend the latex gloves and kitchen sponge etch method though. There is zero guesswork as to what is fully etched and you use very little ferric chloride. (I used less than 30ml for a double sided 4x3" board). Just make sure it's *hot*.
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Life may be "too short", but it's the longest thing we ever do.
I have a few time though of getting one of these·laminator why not put a Micro-controller to control the temperature of the·· laminator
Dose any one think this will work
Dose any one have a·laminator they want to get rid of it
I would like to give this a try and see if it can be done but I do not want to do it with an new one
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ··Thanks for any··that you may have and all of your time finding them
· · · · Sam
Post Edited (sam_sam_sam) : 1/4/2010 1:37:08 AM GMT
sam_sam_sam said...
I have a few time though of getting one of these laminator why not put a Micro-controller to control the temperature of the laminator
Dose any one think this will work
Well, yes it will, but I really don't see it doing any better job than a standard thermostat.
sam_sam_sam said...
Dose any one have a laminator they want to get rid of it
I would like to give this a try and see if it can be done but I do not want to do it with an new one
You need to ensure any laminator you use has hot rollers. A lot use a heater plate before the rollers, so the board cools off as the pressure is applied. The GBC laminators all seem to use heated rollers.
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Life may be "too short", but it's the longest thing we ever do.
If I could afford it I would too, this is not exactly a fun process and the prospect of drilling is downright unfun but ExpressPCB is $70 to get non-silkscreened boards with shipping and frankly thats too much for me to spend when I'm not sure it's going to work. The batch PCB services all would have me stuck waiting for weeks and still running 30 or more a board. So this seemed like a reasonable investment.
I have a micromark drill press on the way and a set of bits. The 'ol dremel press just is not going to do it. Too much slop in the head. The mini-mill i'm waiting to arrive won't have the spindle RPMs for this. So I went with little Micromark press. Not as many RPMs as the Proxon press but at this point I'm getting low on funds for tooling. My wife is already grumbling about that mini-mill purchase.
I did a board last November that I did not populate yet. That was €57 for 4 pcs. But is a board I couldn't do at home... I hope it works, I need to get a couple of 2.5V regulators but as I do not have anything else to buy I did not wanted to pay €10 for just 2 regulators...
Thought I'd report in on the next step. Registration and etching of side two. I did something similar to Brad. I made the four outside pads specifically to help line up the layers. My smallest drill bit last weekend was 1/16th so that's what I used to drill those. I should have waited because the 1/16th was just too big. Also the Dremel liked to slop to one side as pressure was applied but I got reasonable centers drilled. Tonight I printed the bottom layer on the transfer paper and drilled the same holes in it using a block of wood. The Dremel did better here but lining up by eye is a total pain. Since I didn't have PCB pins what I did was take a 1/16 bit and slide the shank in the hole in one corner that looked best centered. Then I aligned the other holes by looking through them and adjusting out as much of any half-moon shape as I could in the holes. I then held in place that as I taped the edges to tack it down enough to hold. I had tape bits ready so I just had to hold it steady while I added them.
So back through the laminator. I did 8 passes to be certain since this would not be a treat to repeat. Then added the TRF (Be sure to remember to clean of the glue stuff from the transfer paper first. That caused some grief on the first pass). After that looked good I setup the etch tray and warm etch solution and got to work with the sponge. I masked the other side off with blue painters tape to protect the already finished work on that side.· I wrapped the edges of the tape over to help hold back any seeping around the edge of the board.·
About 3 minutes later it was done. Now, it's not over till it's drilled but I was pretty thrilled because by all appearances the two sides align nearly perfectly. I can see the little pin points of light through the board for the way undersized holes I left for that purpose. I may well have a functional board here shortly. I have my bits in hand I just need the press to get here and I'll get started.
I'm impressed. I think they have made a really nice kit to do this with.
Post Edited (photomankc) : 1/8/2010 5:07:35 AM GMT
Yeah! That's really nice. The only difference between your method and mine was I laminated both sides at once, then etched them both together. If you drill the artwork neatly (I used a 1mm bit) and the holes in the board right then you can get incredibly good registration.
What I did was drill both transfer papers on the drill press (A carbide bit at about 7,000 RPM makes a very clean hole in paper). For the board I taped a top layer paper printout to it and then drilled through that. I used a 20w halogen like from a 45 degree angle to allow me a sharp shadow so I could tell precisely where the drill bit was going to land when I touched the board/paper.
So you did 8 passes with the transfer paper? How many passes did you do with the TRF and how did you clean the glue off first? The TRF seems to be the point where things get messy for me.
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Life may be "too short", but it's the longest thing we ever do.
Oh man, duhhhhh.·· That was the·bit I was missing.· Printing a non-mirrored page to mark the positions for the registration holes on the bare copper.· That one never occured to me.· I would much prefer to get them both laminated on and etch both sides rather than doing them one at a time but I was not coming up with a way to get the holes on·there first.· Good grief that would have been much easier!
As for the TRF, I found that sometimes you get a small amount of the dextrin coating left on the board after the toner is transfered.· I just take it up to the faucet and rinse it off and real gently rub my finger (gloved) over it under luke warm water.· When I don't feel any slippery·spots I call it·good.· I forgot to do that last night and there were patches where the TRF didn't adhere.· Once I rinsed it it adhered perfectly.· Also I·was taping the·TRF down at the top to keep it taught as I insert it.· If I tape it down and get it pulled nice and flat then I insert it and·maintain that pull on the TRF until I can't keep my fingers on it anymore I usually get a real nice smooth result.· I do three passes and once it's done you can see the trace pattern in clear·relief with no splotchy appearence.· I'm getting better with it but·it is defiinately a little difficult to work with.
With a little help from my new Harbor Frieght Mini-Mill I was able to drill the through holes.· I was expecting it to not do so well since top RPM is only 2500 but they came out very well actually.· I'm still going to use the Micro-Mark press when it arrives but I may just spring for their X/Y table.· That's hard to beat man!
Anyway got it soldered and popped it into the breadboard and the logic output from it says it's stepping!· Now when I get brave it will be time to hook up the power side and see if I can get a motor turning.
From software design to reality in a few weeks.· Sweet!
Comments
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· Propeller Object Exchange (last Publications / Updates);·· Vaati's custom search
Thinking I had the basic idea I set off to transfer the top image to my real boards. It all went downhill from there. The toner refused to bond no matter how many passes I made. 4, 6, 8 ,10 whatever. I would drop it in the water and in seconds most of my traces and pads were floating at the top. I was about to give up and call it a night when I tried one more time. I rescrubbed the copper and re-printed the top layer and ran it through about 8 or 9 times. This time there were again a few bits floating in the water but they were the tiny board outline edges not the traces or pads. I dried it off and ran it through a few more times with the TRF foil and this time I got a usable transfer on the top layer. Next I need to drill some alignment holes for the bottom layer so I can register the art for that layer properly.
Before I go farther I think I will try to up the heat from the GBC laminator. It's the H-65 model they recommend but it seems clear the toner is not fusing at the 130C it's reaching. I have changed the fuse to 240C and will get the new thermostat switch from mouser for 157-160C. It doesn't use electronic control for sensing the heat like some I have seen modified, it uses fixed temperature switches that open and interrupt power to the heater it seems. Hopefully with more heat then the process will involve fewer retries. I think it would behoove Pulsar to look at getting a device made to spec to do this vs. the hit-or-miss deal with off-the-shelf laminators. Some people repor tno problems and some never get it to work with the H-65. I see people make some really fantastic PCBs with this kit but it seems in those cases they often have had to mod the laminator to get it a bit hotter to really get it done well. My printer is an HP CM1017 with real HP toner so the toner should not be the issue.
Well see when my too-expensive (had to mail order it) thermostat switch arrives if that helps or not.
One idea I had was to print the top layer with tiny holes to help center the bits and make it less critical to use just the size bit that the footprint did. I will leave out the holes on the bottom to make it less critical with alignment. Hopefully that will make drilling more successful. We'll see. I can see some light at the end of the tunnel here though. I'm a step closer to getting my stepper driver off the ground and actually moving something with the testing this breakout will allow when done.
The [noparse][[/noparse]top|left] board was done tonight, the [noparse][[/noparse]bottom|right] was my final result after multiple tries with the lower temp on the laminator.· While the current process is more reliable to actually get the toner to stick, the first board shows the crisper lines... where they stuck.
Post Edited (photomankc) : 1/3/2010 7:10:16 AM GMT
I had the best results by far by laminating and etching both sides at once. I drilled a couple of registration holes and put 1mm PCB pins through them to register the artwork before taping down both sides and running it through the laminator.
I've most certainly been getting toner smear, so I'm still a whisker too hot I think. Certainly got much better results after mortgaging a kidney and buying a genuine HP toner cartridge. The refilled one the printer came with was utter rubbish.
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Life may be "too short", but it's the longest thing we ever do.
What are PCB pins? I was planning to do something similar by making four center drilled pads at the corners to use to use to line up the second layer with the same holes drilled in it's paper.
I'm going to see what the minimum number of passes I can get away with is. I started with 3 and jumped up to 10 and have been backing down to see what I still get good adhesion with. Fewer passes should mean less smear. I'm actually using genuine HP toner on this but there is definitely something different between what they use for the test print sheet and what I have. The test print stuck like glue and even through multiple passes the fine detail was almost perfect. Right now 15 mil spacing would be the razors edge for me. 10 mil will sometimes smear together. Still as long as I know the rules I think it will be very useful to validate something I want made in bulk or provide for a few copies of something one-off.
www.altronics.com.au/index.asp?area=item&id=H0804
I'd be very interested to hear what Frank comes back with as the printer he uses for the test sheets. He's always been very responsive when I've mailed him, but I never actually thought to ask which printer he uses. I find the toner coverage on my 2200D a bit patchy, but then I'm using a very heavy ground planes and lots of toner. Frank recommended using a hatched ground plane to reduce the toner use. Apparently it helps the printer cover.
I highly recommend the latex gloves and kitchen sponge etch method though. There is zero guesswork as to what is fully etched and you use very little ferric chloride. (I used less than 30ml for a double sided 4x3" board). Just make sure it's *hot*.
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Life may be "too short", but it's the longest thing we ever do.
Dose any one think this will work
Dose any one have a·laminator they want to get rid of it
I would like to give this a try and see if it can be done but I do not want to do it with an new one
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··Thanks for any·
·
·
·
·
Sam
Post Edited (sam_sam_sam) : 1/4/2010 1:37:08 AM GMT
Well, yes it will, but I really don't see it doing any better job than a standard thermostat.
You need to ensure any laminator you use has hot rollers. A lot use a heater plate before the rollers, so the board cools off as the pressure is applied. The GBC laminators all seem to use heated rollers.
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Life may be "too short", but it's the longest thing we ever do.
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Visit some of my articles at Propeller Wiki:
MATH on the propeller propeller.wikispaces.com/MATH
pPropQL: propeller.wikispaces.com/pPropQL
pPropQL020: propeller.wikispaces.com/pPropQL020
OMU for the pPropQL/020 propeller.wikispaces.com/OMU
I have a micromark drill press on the way and a set of bits. The 'ol dremel press just is not going to do it. Too much slop in the head. The mini-mill i'm waiting to arrive won't have the spindle RPMs for this. So I went with little Micromark press. Not as many RPMs as the Proxon press but at this point I'm getting low on funds for tooling. My wife is already grumbling about that mini-mill purchase.
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
Visit some of my articles at Propeller Wiki:
MATH on the propeller propeller.wikispaces.com/MATH
pPropQL: propeller.wikispaces.com/pPropQL
pPropQL020: propeller.wikispaces.com/pPropQL020
OMU for the pPropQL/020 propeller.wikispaces.com/OMU
Thought I'd report in on the next step. Registration and etching of side two. I did something similar to Brad. I made the four outside pads specifically to help line up the layers. My smallest drill bit last weekend was 1/16th so that's what I used to drill those. I should have waited because the 1/16th was just too big. Also the Dremel liked to slop to one side as pressure was applied but I got reasonable centers drilled. Tonight I printed the bottom layer on the transfer paper and drilled the same holes in it using a block of wood. The Dremel did better here but lining up by eye is a total pain. Since I didn't have PCB pins what I did was take a 1/16 bit and slide the shank in the hole in one corner that looked best centered. Then I aligned the other holes by looking through them and adjusting out as much of any half-moon shape as I could in the holes. I then held in place that as I taped the edges to tack it down enough to hold. I had tape bits ready so I just had to hold it steady while I added them.
So back through the laminator. I did 8 passes to be certain since this would not be a treat to repeat. Then added the TRF (Be sure to remember to clean of the glue stuff from the transfer paper first. That caused some grief on the first pass). After that looked good I setup the etch tray and warm etch solution and got to work with the sponge. I masked the other side off with blue painters tape to protect the already finished work on that side.· I wrapped the edges of the tape over to help hold back any seeping around the edge of the board.·
About 3 minutes later it was done. Now, it's not over till it's drilled but I was pretty thrilled because by all appearances the two sides align nearly perfectly. I can see the little pin points of light through the board for the way undersized holes I left for that purpose. I may well have a functional board here shortly. I have my bits in hand I just need the press to get here and I'll get started.
I'm impressed. I think they have made a really nice kit to do this with.
Post Edited (photomankc) : 1/8/2010 5:07:35 AM GMT
What I did was drill both transfer papers on the drill press (A carbide bit at about 7,000 RPM makes a very clean hole in paper). For the board I taped a top layer paper printout to it and then drilled through that. I used a 20w halogen like from a 45 degree angle to allow me a sharp shadow so I could tell precisely where the drill bit was going to land when I touched the board/paper.
So you did 8 passes with the transfer paper? How many passes did you do with the TRF and how did you clean the glue off first? The TRF seems to be the point where things get messy for me.
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Life may be "too short", but it's the longest thing we ever do.
Oh man, duhhhhh.·· That was the·bit I was missing.· Printing a non-mirrored page to mark the positions for the registration holes on the bare copper.· That one never occured to me.· I would much prefer to get them both laminated on and etch both sides rather than doing them one at a time but I was not coming up with a way to get the holes on·there first.· Good grief that would have been much easier!
As for the TRF, I found that sometimes you get a small amount of the dextrin coating left on the board after the toner is transfered.· I just take it up to the faucet and rinse it off and real gently rub my finger (gloved) over it under luke warm water.· When I don't feel any slippery·spots I call it·good.· I forgot to do that last night and there were patches where the TRF didn't adhere.· Once I rinsed it it adhered perfectly.· Also I·was taping the·TRF down at the top to keep it taught as I insert it.· If I tape it down and get it pulled nice and flat then I insert it and·maintain that pull on the TRF until I can't keep my fingers on it anymore I usually get a real nice smooth result.· I do three passes and once it's done you can see the trace pattern in clear·relief with no splotchy appearence.· I'm getting better with it but·it is defiinately a little difficult to work with.
IT WORKS!!!!
With a little help from my new Harbor Frieght Mini-Mill I was able to drill the through holes.· I was expecting it to not do so well since top RPM is only 2500 but they came out very well actually.· I'm still going to use the Micro-Mark press when it arrives but I may just spring for their X/Y table.· That's hard to beat man!
Anyway got it soldered and popped it into the breadboard and the logic output from it says it's stepping!· Now when I get brave it will be time to hook up the power side and see if I can get a motor turning.
From software design to reality in a few weeks.· Sweet!