Pcb home made kits

[Water skier 16]

Evening all,
Does anyone have any diy pcb making experience. I would like to do it fairly low cost using an etching kit like this one. https://cpc.farnell.com/kemo-electr...wSdex34xvO3gC6E5ndun9FF6IfZQyDDUaAuKREALw_wcB
The boards will be for model railway control boards and scenic power distribution and control. So only a maximum of 24volts ac and dc obviously on different boards/ control panels.
Any advice suggestions welcome
Regards
James

 

[MattH]

Etching is the easy bit. You need to decide how you will lay down your mask.
There are a number of ways:

• Rub on transfers for simple layouts
• Mask pen / sharpie (for simple hand drawn layouts)
• Iron on transfers (requires a laser printer)
• UV mask (requires laser printer and pre sanitised boards and YV light box)

The laser transfers are very good for one off designs.

 

[Water skier 16]

Etching is the easy bit. You need to decide how you will lay down your mask.
There are a number of ways:

• Rub on transfers for simple layouts
• Mask pen / sharpie (for simple hand drawn layouts)
• Iron on transfers (requires a laser printer)
• UV mask (requires laser printer and pre sanitised boards and YV light box)

The laser transfers are very good for one off designs.

The layouts are simple, the most complicated is a capacitor Discharge Unit for solenoid point motors, even that is very basic

 

[MattH]

Have you considered vero board instead?

 

[Robotstar5]

I found the transfers the easiest to use, you can get sheets of pads, lines. curves etc.

Do you need any Seep PM1 point motors?, I'm about to put a load of new ones on the bay.

 

[Water skier 16]

I found the transfers the easiest to use, you can get sheets of pads, lines. curves etc.

Do you need any Seep PM1 point motors?, I'm about to put a load of new ones on the bay.

That would be fantastic how many and how much including p Andover?

 

[Robotstar5]

That would be fantastic how many and how much including p Andover?

PM sent.

 

[daedalusminos]

To be honest it's not very expensive getting boards professionally made, plenty of options e.g. JLPCB

 

[Tom O]

I’ve been wanting to try this for a while I have a carbon arc flip top platemaker would I be able to use it to expose the piece for developing?

 

[Water skier 16]

Have you considered vero board instead?

I have looked into it since you said about it. I might just try that route.

 

[Hopefuldave]

IF (big if...) you have an inkjet printer that repeats well (print three times and it gets blacker, not "smudged") printing onto OHP transparencies works pretty well, carry on repeating the layout print until you're happy it's dense enough, then sandwich UV-sensitised board and mask (ink side down) between two sheets of thin glass (I use glass chopping boards) and expose to UV from a suitable lamp - a very-vintage Philips Ultraphil* tanning lamp in my case!

It's worth making a test mask with lots of detail and moving a sheet of something across the mask in timed (e.g. 20 or 30 second) steps during a long exposure to find the sweet spot that gets crisp edges and good detail (too little exposure and the blank bits won't develop/etch away, too much and UV bleeds under the mask edges) once developed and etched. Works for me, anyway...

Veroboard is pretty good for a quick-and-dirty circuit, BUT the hole spacings** don't always match components (e.g. metric spaced capacitor pins etc.)

Dave H. (the other one)

* with a big mercury-discharge "spotlamp" bulb - tops up the Vitamin D as well!
** make life easy and boards look neater with a component lead bending guide or tool - https://www.ebay.co.uk/p/Bending-De...stance-LED/1949217490?iid=311520524893&chn=ps or (ouch! but the one I have) https://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/pcb-lead-cutting-forming-equipment/0545109/

 

[ajlelectronics]

Veroboard IS metric. Hole spacing is 2.54mm.

 

[Hopefuldave]

Veroboard IS metric. Hole spacing is 2.54mm.

And a lot of Japanese electrolytics are Imperial, 0.1574803140603" lead spacing....

Dave H. *the other one)

 

[ajlelectronics]

I used to make my own boards and probably still have all the kit lurking somewhere. However all the stuff I build is unique so making a board for a one off is a waste of effort, when I can build it on Veroboard in less time.

 

[Wendelspanswick]

I use Eagle CAD for my layouts, it also does the wire nets.
I've toyed with the idea of getting my PCBs mail order as the price is so cheap now but I always end up laser printing onto a glossy magazine then ironing it onto a plain copper clad board then soaking the paper off.

 

[Wendelspanswick]

 

[Hopefuldave]

That looks TOO easy... (goes off to EvilBay in search of a cheap laser printer)

What temperature does the iron need to reach?

Dave H. (the other one)

 

[graffian]

Laser prints ironed on a is pretty easy way of masking for making PCBs.
I tried spray on uv sensative mask, it worked but it wasn't totaly foolproof.
I bought some iron on dry mask, I tested it when I bought it about 5 years ago
and it worked pretty well as long, as you got the mask on perfectly.

But when I needed a pcb quickly a few weeks ago I ironed on a laser print.
I should have tried the dry mask but it seemed like it would be more work, I wasn't
sure if the dry film has an eat by date or it was negative or positive.

I use a Laserjet printer. I iron the things on with a household iron.
Maximum heat for a few minutes. People say they pass the PCB and print
though a laminator a few times and it works, but more is better.

 

[ajlelectronics]

This is the type of thing I did when I still had use of my eyes and brain. It is a test board for PIC processor software in an automatic gate opener system I developed.

This is a general test board for Arduino development.

This is a non specific development and test board.

 

[Water skier 16]

Are any of those boards soldered? Is the top board Vero board?