As many of you well know based on the kits available from the GetLoFi.com/shop, over the past year we have been experimenting with making our own single sided circuit boards. The road to making shiny nearly perfect boards quickly and efficiently was not easy. Despite a great number of tutorials on the Internet some aspects of this process are not very clear or efficient. Most of the focus is on making one circuit board and then shipping the design to a PCB Fab House either over seas or in US. There is nothing wrong with that if you need double sided through-hole PCBs and are prepared to pay a high premium and wait months for the results which may or may not be correct. Not to mention the frustration of learning bulky CAD software to make those dreaded Gerber files. Our method involves first designing a board in dead simple ExpressPCB software, printing a template, copying onto toner transfer paper, transferring via a laminator, etching, cutting, no drilling, and viola! Low cost large batches of simple circuit boards in as little as 1 hour start to finish given that nothing goes wrong. We are not saying that this is the best, most efficient, and convenient way. This is simply how we make our boards. If you decide to try this process be warned that we provide no guarantee on your safety or results. Do this at your own risk and observe all safety warnings, also be prepared to spend considerable cash on quality supplies and equipment.
Tags: circuit board, DIY, etching, single-sided, toner transfer
Short answer is that you CAN NOT make professional boards like that. It take special machines and chemicals, which are only practical in PCB Fab houses. Your best bet is to make a design and have it ordered through one of those Fab Houses.
Hope that helps.
Thanks, it’s great to watch the process start to finish, as it’s easy to visualize something wrong when just reading. I really want to try board making again, after a first attempt years back. The deep etching bucket would have helped rather than the shallow pan I used, and the laser print process looks a lot easier than the process I used then, which was laying down tape and stick on patterns on mylar.
Hi there, the whole thing is going sound here and ofcourse every one is sharing information, that’s in fact good, keep up writing.