Print your own circuit boards with an Inkjet (and a modicum of skill)
By Joseph L. Flatley 
posted Oct 30th 2009 5:39PM
posted Oct 30th 2009 5:39PM
Remember yesterday, when one illustrious modder whipped up a head-mounted computer that featured a printed circuit board of his own design? The fabrication method he used was called direct-to-PCB Inkjet printing. An economical (if laborious) alternative to professional production, the process includes: designing your circuit, printing it out on a transparency, flickin' on some lightbulbs, washing things out in abrasive chemicals, and waving a magic wand. While it's not for the timid (nor simple enough to go through in great detail here) the kids over at Instructables have been kind enough to put together and post one of their award-winning step-by-step guides on this very subject. So, what are you waiting for? Hit the read link and get to work.
Must be a slow day at Engadget. This post doesn't belong on Engadget, maybe Makezine or Hackaday...
dude it has everything to do with Engadget.. It has an Apple in the picture *sarcasm*
Oh hush, this post belongs here. God forbid a gadget blog ever cover anything other than apple rumors and cellphone leaks. How dare they!
btw, Mr.Flatley, I for one *did* appreciate this post, more power to you.
Flaming started because of a fruit on the picture.
Oh, people.
Cupertino lawsuit incoming,,,
3...2....1
I did this at school like 3 years ago lol
I did this at school like 30 years ago lol
It's OK, it hasn't been bitten yet...
I did this in high school 6 years ago.
Bring back the Droid.
It can run crysis though, right?
Sure, Timmy!
Now go back to your room.
I fabricate guitar effects using this method of PCB etching. Good times for all.
This is pretty old. Before inkjets we used photocopiers. And it it came to it, we grabbed a sharpie and drew over the transparency. What sucked was buying photo-sensitive boards, they were so expensive back in '94.
I never used photo methods because all the boards I made were one-offs. Used the Sharpie direct on the board - black worked better than red for resistance to the etchant.
Yeah i was surprised, this method has been around for ages
Ah, the sharpie method. That's what I used.
I am not affiliated with them at all, but I've had great success with Gold Phoenix PCB from china. For $99 you can get a whole panel of boards from them depending on what options you want, turnover time, etc, but they're good quality boards - SparkFun uses them for their stuff! The basic deal is 5 day turn plus 3 days shipping from china, so you get things in about a week for dirt cheap!
-Taylor
OMG!
It's Taylor!
I could have used this in a big way back during my "PC board fabrication frenzy" period. You don't know "tedious" until you've used Sharpies and REALLY thin tape to make PC boards (or the part that is NOT to be etched, that is).
Now you've made me interested again.
And just a week or so ago I spilled a quarter bottle of ferric chloride solution I got from Radio Shack.
30 years ago.
[do they still sell that stuff? I still have another unopened bottle...]
I wonder if someone has made a moto-dremel drilling rig automated yet - that's the OTHER tedious part, drilling all the damn holes.
This technique is ancient, we used it when I was at school 6 years ago. You aren't exactly "printing" the circuit board either, you're printing the layout and then doing a load of other stuff to actually make the PCB.
I was about to say, we used this in school, hardly anything new.
I did this in school too. Nothing new.
I new this in school too. Did nothing.
WTF, been doing that with a laser printer for the last 10 years.
This is the photoresist method, NOT Direct to PCB inkjet printing, that is another thing entirely.
Yeah, there's nothing direct about this.
With the cheap board fab services out there, no need to do something this crude. You can get high quality multilayer PCBs in a few days with very tiny traces and lots of features you can't do with the (various) home methods.
I am very confused as to why engadget thinks this is news.
I (and countless other people) have been doing this for years, with laser and inkjet printers. It is only one part of the method, and in many ways it is the easiest part. So of course it needs it's own article...
Like JBeans says, Why anybody would want to make a PCB that way in the age of dirt cheap fab services is bizarre. The layout software is free and the turn around time is faster than what it would take to laboriously drill out that crude board. It's getting to be that way with machined parts and 3D print services.
lady ada.. comments?
I did it a more direct way. I'd print the mirrored layout with a laser printer (or photocopier), then ironed it on to a pcb. The heat will transfer some of the toner to the PCB.
If you get enough toner on the PCB, you can etch that directly. Otherwise just quickly trace over the toner with a marker.
I remember when Artline switched to xylene-free inks... they sucked. Good thing the Artline industrial markers are still as toxic as ever!
Can someone explain to me what this is?
This way of making PCB has existed for a long time. Where i work, it is the prefered way of making PCB's cuz we only have very small quentaties productions. And i think this method is very good just that cuz with some skills you can print a good print in like 30 mins
Fuck PCBs. Yeah to point-to-point gheheh
Direct toner transfer is the easiest if you have a laser printer:
http://www.dr-lex.be/hardware/tonertransfer.html
Not exactly news, is it. Loads of methods have existed for ages. Our preferred method, in the absense of transparencies and light-sensitive coats, was to print onto glossy paper with a laser printer and then iron it (with a hot iron) onto the board. Soak the paper in water and only the ink stays. Then etch. Only a single chemical is involved, which makes it a bit easier to DIY in one's kitchen.
Just another voice to the cry of 'I did this at school'. 16 years ago, and we used a Roland plotter on the copper-clad board, before throwing it in the etching tank and then drilling the holes. Used it to make a 'stereo on 1' board to play MOD files on my PC. I think it's still in the loft somewhere...
I saw an article on gizmag that said that Xerox has an experimental inkjet printer that uses silver conductive ink to print circuitboards on paper, and some semiconductor inks that let you print the components right onto the paper as well. With long rolls of paper you could print humongous circuits that you could just roll up to make them more compact. Perhaps in the future the most common shape for your open source print at home electronics will be the cylinder.