its PCB time

It's just paper that you would use if you were printing photographs. It's pretty glossy so the toner will stick to it fairly well, but when you iron it to your copper board, it will still transfer.

when you iron the paper on the copper board, it makes the toner stick to the copper and not the paper. Thus leaving the toner on the board.

Hope this helps.

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!

NOW it makes sense :lol: thank you very much jrz. the best that i could come up with was that the paper was sensitive to the laser and the laser somehow perforated the paper, and then u peel it off. :roll:

and its so much cheaper. just ordered some copper clad boards among other things, cant wait :lol:

What is meant then by saying to remove the "fills" and the "donuts" if all that happens is toner transfers to the board?

the paper coating is usually something made with clay... the coating tends to stick to the board along with the toner, just luckily for you the coating is a lot easier to get rid of than the toner... with the staples picture paper you can soak the board in water and peel of layer by layer, and then eventually scrub the coating off the board with a toothbrush... leaving just the toner.

that site is exactly what i follow. good info.

oh, ok :lol:

one last and final question (hopefully), how do you get the toner off? Scrubbing it w/ brillo pads?

On the subject of etchants, I used to be able to get ammonium persulphate. It is incredibly soluble, and if you add more persulphate to the solution when it gets a bit slow, you can restore its speed. After doing this a couple of times, it will be found that crystals appear when the solution cools after etching. These are copper sulphate and ammonium sulphate. Discard these, heat up the solution, add a couple of spoonfuls of persulphate crystals, and away you go again. No waste!
The solution will keep a LOT longer in the fridge. DO NOT keep it in a sealed container, as it will give off oxygen and build up pressure.
I don't think the sodium salt is sufficiently soluble to do this recycling thing.

zachtheterrible said:

oh, ok :lol:

one last and final question (hopefully), how do you get the toner off? Scrubbing it w/ brillo pads?

Click to expand...

I use a spray can of car part cleaner I have in the garage. It cleans everything off of the board after it's etched, then I scrub it a bit with some scotchbrite and wash it.

lacquer thinner will take the toner right off. you can get a pretty big can of it at any hardware store for less than 10 bucks.

alrighty than. thanx everybody very much. This whole process has finally become clear to me.