Transfering Toner - An Illustrated How To

Just found this and its relative to what I’m up to at the moment, hopefully it will help others!

Special thanks to Phil at www.PMinMO.com for putting this together!

See file: pcbmaking.pdf

I was very intrested with this post, and found it easy to understand and easy to follow pictures step by step.

Also i would like to add this link: http://www.fullnet.com/~tomg/gooteepc.htm#1
which i come across and tought some of the members would find it helpful in some way as i did.
You can never have to much information.
I would like to see more members sharing teir pictures of their cnc or project logs to help other members along the way.

Everyone has to play their part to make this the biggest and best freindly CNC website.

So come on every member PLEASE try and respond.

regards
peter ( pen5)

I have made a few PCB's. I found it really easy to do the toner transfer
method, OK I made a few fuck ups, but as soon as you see the toner is incomplete you can wipe it off and have another go.

Paper. I used, successfully, door spam[pizza advert] golf magazine and some photo paper being flogged a quid for 25 sheets at Tescos. as long as it's shiny it seems to work.
You need to be able to set the toner density high, new windows drivers for laser printers[I have an old laserjet] often don't allow this but there is a laserjet configuration utility that does.
I tried washing the pcb's with a abrasive cleaning medium, like it says in most articales about it, results were crap, I use brake cleaner.
I cleaned the pcb with a fine scotchbrite pad.
I wear latex gloves while handling and cleaning the board, don't and the tracks around the edges won't stick.
I iron the print on for a few minutes, I don't know if there is a time limit, but if you don't do it long enough it doesn't stick.

Washing the paper off has never been the easy 'it floats off after a minute' that is sometimes described. Leave it in water a while and roughen the back with a finger nail, you might remove some or a lot of it. then leave it for 5 mins and remove what you can and keep doing it till you have it all off. You get it off by rubbing with a finger and the paper balls up and comes away leaving the toner.
The toner should be really well stuck on and you can brush it with a nail brush and it won't come off, I take a scalpel to any fine bit's of paper that are bridging copper, as long as the etchant gets to the copper it's ok.

Best to add polygons so you don't have to much to etch off. I always seem to set teh hoel size, in pads, to large, best to err on the small size as soldering tends to be neater.
http://www.matsuura-vmc.co.cc/matsuu...ura-pcb-02.jpg
That is a PCB for my mill. it's double sided and came out pretty good. The pic was taken prior to washing the toner off and drilling the holes, the copper has been etched off.

Some good tips graf, i'm greatfull of the laserjet info as thats what i have got and didnt think i could use it.

Anyone in the Uk check out Morrison's they do a pack of photo paper for about £5 for somthing like 50 sheets and its good stuff, its there value range but works well and looks good.

Lee

I have been experimenting with toner transfer to make my boards and have found cheap inkjet photo paper in my local £1 shop that as worked nicely,found that if i used 4"x6" paper stuck to a A4 sheet it was the ideal size for my boards.Haven't got a laserjet so went to local library to get them copied - explained what I was doing and they were most helpful.Used washing up liquid to clean board,put a spot on the board and rub in with finger then wash off under tap then dry with paper towel,making sure not to touch with hands.Tried using iron but didn't work too well so I fed them through a laminator about 10-12 times and this worked great (was only single sided board so not too thick)let them stand for 5 min then soak for 20 min and the paper just peeled away.Used a scotchbrite pad for initial cleaning and for removing ink after etching,tried acetone but too messy.
Attachment 1601these are some of my early attempts before etching,all now populated and working!
Hope this might be of help to anyone deciding to do their own boards.
May I just had a word of thanks to Phil at www.PMinMO.com for his invaluable help.

pen5 I found the link very useful posted by you. It has got great information regarding to PCB. It was quite easy to understand each and everything and now I think my work will be more easier in making PCB.