Your opinion on DIY PCB Making
Hi, I am working on a school project and I would really appreciate some input. I have to ask questions on the process and common problems of making PCB boards for a presentation
1. What is the most time consuming part of making a PCB? Is there a part that significantly slows down the progress and why?
2. What part of the process (creating the schematic, etching, etc) is most prone to errors?
Thanks.
>>946991
You're just doing a presentation, no PCB of your own? Alright.
Well, it depends entirely on the method. Now the two primary methods of DIY PCB making are the photo resist method and toner transfer with toner transfer being the worse, but more easily accessible choice.
The most consuming part of making a PCB depends on the project, creating a design for the schematic can take days or a few minutes, obviously depending on complexity, but in general I'd consider this part to be fairly short, if anything simply because there's pre-drawn PCB designs online.
The first part of the production method also varies depending on the material you're using, for the photo resist method you need to start with a clean copper covered plate, which you then need to clean and take through a lenghty process of applying the photo resist spray.
This process can take nearly an hour.
Assume you spent about 5-10 minutes on getting the board properly clean, after that you need to apply the photo resist coat, let it air dry for about 10 minutes, then throw it in an oven at 60-70°C for another 30 minutes.
This entire process can be skipped if you paid a little extra and purchased a board with the coating pre-applied.
After the board is prepped we move over to step two.
Here you laser print a copy of your design on transparent material and use an ultraviolet light source to transfer the design to your photoresist coated board. Depending on the method of coating and your light source the time varies, but you're looking at about 2-10 minutes of exposure.
After the board gets sufficiently exposed, you'll need to mix photo developer and develop the board, non-exposed parts of the coating now float away.
With the toner transfer method you can skip the application of the coat and simply print out the design on wax paper (or similar, takes trial and error to find good paper) and with the help of heat, transfer the toner from the paper to the clean board.
>>947011
The final step of production is etching, depending on the etching solution time and results obviously may vary.
Personally I use the mix of HCl and Hydrogen Peroxide. If the prep-work was done correctly, I end up with a good looking board in about 15 minutes of etching.
The most time consuming and error prone part of the process is the step of transfering the design from paper to your PCB.
This step is why I personally use the photoresist method, since it produces much, much more reliable transfers.
I didn't know /diy/ does homework.
I'd say drilling holes is the worst part
