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Plate your own holes thru. — Parallax Forums

Plate your own holes thru.

Martin HodgeMartin Hodge Posts: 1,246
edited 2010-10-20 06:42 in General Discussion
Interested in making "professional" plated-through-hole prototypes yourself? Have WAY too much time on your hands? MG chemicals has the solution for you.

http://www.mgchemicals.com/techsupport/proto_prof.html

Comments

  • Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi)Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi) Posts: 23,514
    edited 2010-10-17 14:36
    Wow! I could send off a design and get boards back before I got done with that process! Besides, I was always lousy at chem lab stuff. :)

    -Phil
  • John R.John R. Posts: 1,376
    edited 2010-10-17 15:02
    I didn't get into the details in the manual, but reading the procedure certainly makes it sound like quite a process. Having done color film and print developing "the hard way" in the past, I would suggest that once you got the hang of it, it might not be that complicated, but it certainly is questionable if it's worth the time. How many through holes with a connection on both sides do you need to make this faster than just soldering the pin/wire on both sides?

    It also brought up another thought. I wonder how much copper you could deposit using the process for plating a telescope mirror. Basically, you put the mirror in a chamber, draw a vacuum, and then run enough current through a small piece of aluminum (or other material, like gold, depending on the wavelength of light you're after), and the metal condenses very evenly on the surface of the mirror (and the inside of the chamber, and anything else in it).

    Normally this coating is VERY thin, but I'm wondering if it would be possible to machine a blank board (no copper) with the holes and vias, and deposit enough copper to make a usable circuit board. You might even be able to do something so that the copper wouldn't stick to the areas you didn't want traces, and then you wouldn't need to etch afterwords.

    Probably not very practicable, but I just thought I would throw that out there.


    John R.
  • eod_punkeod_punk Posts: 146
    edited 2010-10-18 05:49
    I haven't tried this system but I thought it looked and sounded promising.

    http://www.pulsarprofx.com/pcbfx/main_site/pages/tech_support/plated_thru_holes/plated-thru_holes.html
  • LoopyBytelooseLoopyByteloose Posts: 12,537
    edited 2010-10-20 06:42
    Details.... details.... details...
    In Taiwan, it seems that every years someone feels the need to seek fame by writing a Chinese poem, the Lord's Prayer, or some other text on a grain of rice.

    Why I don't know.

    One can make a two sided board without plated through holes. Plated through holes tends to only be required when you have blind vias to layers that are internal.

    I suppose we could make our own capacitors and resistors as well................... NOT!
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