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How to make your own PCBs at home — Parallax Forums

How to make your own PCBs at home

ALIBEALIBE Posts: 299
edited 2006-12-03 16:12 in General Discussion
Over the last couple of weekends, I have set myself to explore learning making PCBs at home. This might be very trivial to most of the advanced folks in this forum. It was definitely very new to me and had a lot of fun learning and experimenting a few times.

I wanted to share my excitement and my experience in this forum. If in case folks like me who might want to do similar stuff in their own projects.

I could have definitely chosen the route of picking online PCB makers, but, before I did that,· I wanted to try and make them myself. I think I learned something and it was a lot of fun.

Here's the url to the step-by-step - in my own words [noparse]:)[/noparse]
http://aliben.wordpress.com/2006/12/02/41/

all comments and feedback are welcome

ciao






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"any small object, accidentally dropped, goes and hides behind a larger object."


ALIBE - Artificial LIfe BEing. In search of building autonoumous land robot
http://ALIBE.crosscity.com/
·

Comments

  • James LongJames Long Posts: 1,181
    edited 2006-12-02 03:04
    ALIBE,

    I didn't check the webpage......but I'm sure you learned a lot from your experience......I've never tried making one myself. Always had someone route it or a pcb house make it.

    James L
  • LSBLSB Posts: 175
    edited 2006-12-02 03:11
    The quality looks excellent in the photos, how many attempts did it take to get the heat right? Also, I'd be curious to know how long it takes from start to finish to make a board.
  • GadgetmanGadgetman Posts: 2,436
    edited 2006-12-02 11:59
    Looks good!

    One way to get the etching over with a bit quicker is to place the plastic tray in a hot water bath.

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    Don't visit my new website...
  • ALIBEALIBE Posts: 299
    edited 2006-12-02 14:53
    James, yeah it was a lot of fun doing this myself - was a good learning experience

    LSB, thanks. The first attempt I tried w/ "silk" setting and that did not transfer the toner ink from the p-n-p to the PCB that well. Second time around,· I turned it up to Wool and that seemed to have worked well.· As w/ regard to start-to-finish, it took me 35 mins. The first attempt it took me 45 min. So, the 2nd attempt proved a bit quicker (and hopefully better)

    Gadgetman, thanks - I must try the hot water bath next time. I heard it speeds up the etching process - but did not think of trying it. Thanks for bringing it up - I will try it next time for sure. Hopefully, that will bring down the start-to-finish time quicker.



    ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
    "any small object, accidentally dropped, goes and hides behind a larger object."


    ALIBE - Artificial LIfe BEing. In search of building autonoumous land robot
    http://ALIBE.crosscity.com/
    ·
  • Mr. RichardMr. Richard Posts: 51
    edited 2006-12-02 16:11
    I recall in high school using some thin black tape for the runs and doughnut shaped stickers for the pads. We then placed them on a blank then put the board in a fish tank filled with an acid bath. There was a air line feeding a small amount of air to agitate the bat hand a small heater to keep the bath warm. The whole system worked great but I am not sure if the tape and stickers are still made.

    I think I like the printer method better, a much cleaner looking job.


    Looks great, thanks for the info

    Josh
  • T ChapT Chap Posts: 4,223
    edited 2006-12-02 18:58
    Very nice work, I would suggest to do a copper pour/ground plane on your boards. Then when you etch, there is less to remove and it makes your Feric last a lot longer, plus the process may be quicker in some cases. Another idea is to consider doing an SMT board experiment. I will post a crude tutorial on homebrew SMT it if anyone was interested. In my experience, once I got that process down I wouldn't want to use through hole again. With SMT, you'd save a lot of drilling except for connectors and required DIP parts.
  • ALIBEALIBE Posts: 299
    edited 2006-12-02 20:40
    Originator, thanks. How does one grind off copper - simply by sanding using std sand paper? That is a good idea - I think I try that on the underside of the PCB which is really no use to me in my applications and will definitely save time and FeCl2.

    I would defintiely be interested in the SMT tutorial, please post when you have it ready to share

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    "any small object, accidentally dropped, goes and hides behind a larger object."


    ALIBE - Artificial LIfe BEing. In search of building autonoumous land robot
    http://ALIBE.crosscity.com/
    ·
  • James LongJames Long Posts: 1,181
    edited 2006-12-02 21:06
    Alibe,

    No a ground plane (copper pour).....you leave all the excess copper with traces isolated by small thin valleys between the traces and ground plane.

    Like the one included here: ( the picture is not great.....but trust me it is perfect and clear)

    James L

    Post Edited (James Long) : 12/2/2006 9:12:53 PM GMT
    backplane.jpg
    640 x 397 - 54K
  • ALIBEALIBE Posts: 299
    edited 2006-12-02 23:16
    James, aha - that's what they are called. I've seen a ton of boards like these - never really knew what they were called. Thanks for pointing it out.

    How does one solder parts to this - are these only meant for SMTs. Can you share a few examples.

    thanks

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    "any small object, accidentally dropped, goes and hides behind a larger object."


    ALIBE - Artificial LIfe BEing. In search of building autonoumous land robot
    http://ALIBE.crosscity.com/
    ·
  • ALIBEALIBE Posts: 299
    edited 2006-12-02 23:24
    James, I did some searches and found one example of ground pour - much simpler design than yours [noparse]:)[/noparse]. Looking at it further, I think I can see how soldering can be done both on SMT and drill thru.



    Your thoughts?



    thanks!



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    "any small object, accidentally dropped, goes and hides behind a larger object."


    ALIBE - Artificial LIfe BEing. In search of building autonoumous land robot
    http://ALIBE.crosscity.com/
    gp1.jpg
    740 x 459 - 63K
    gp1.jpg 63.4K
  • James LongJames Long Posts: 1,181
    edited 2006-12-03 04:28
    Alibe,

    Most ground pours are for the bottom side. My picture is of a bottom pour. I do not suggest a top pour with homemade pcbs. Remember you don't have a solder mask to keep solder from running everywhere. You can however have top and bottom pours if you have a board made with solder mask.

    Solder Mask BTw is a preventative film that only leaves the pad open to accept solder. (In case you don't know.)

    A bottom pour is very reasonable on homemade PCD's because very few people place components on the bottom side.

    James L
  • T ChapT Chap Posts: 4,223
    edited 2006-12-03 05:52
    The soldering process has nothing to do with the ground plane. The ground plane is simply leaving all the excess copper on the board, and tying it to ground in most cases. Your circuit design program should have a feature in it to fill in the unused areas, and you can select whether it is ground connected or not. You can actually pour top and bottom unless there is a specific design requirement at issue.
  • ALIBEALIBE Posts: 299
    edited 2006-12-03 16:12
    James, originator, thanks both.

    that was very good information. I will do some learning on this front and possibly give it a shot
    [noparse]:)[/noparse]

    ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
    "any small object, accidentally dropped, goes and hides behind a larger object."


    ALIBE - Artificial LIfe BEing. In search of building autonoumous land robot
    http://ALIBE.crosscity.com/
    ·
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