I use Eagle for the board artwork, and Injectorall to print the board. I had little success with iron on, and my consistency was lousy. The photo process is more difficult, but the the results look professional, board after board.
Ron
I use Eagle for the board artwork, and Injectorall to print the board. I had little success with iron on, and my consistency was lousy. The photo process is more difficult, but the the results look professional, board after board.
Ron
For the dinky few I make in a year I used the photocopy method as well. I bought "special" paper from Digi-Key at the time to do it. I haven't done enough of them yet for them to look 100% perfect (meaning some of the lines were a bit jagged), but it is cheap to do for making a few prototype boards where looks might not be a big issue.
I checked out that Kamikaze47 listed and I think my next ones will be better using the tips there.
Bart
I used Advanced Circuits when I was pumping out 5000 at a time, using my own gerber files. Not sure if they are cheap for small orders though. Also, check out Sparkfun.com. They do small orders of 1 and 2 at a good price.
I too use photoresist boards as they come out accurate.Foils can be very close together.I print the foil layout on a laser printer transparency.Once you have it setup, the whole process of expose,develope,and etch takes about 40 minutes.Drilling time of course depends on the number of holes.One nice thing is the component holes are etched out,letting the drill bit slide right into place.The boards are more expensive and you need the ultraviolet light.For a good looking one time project its perfect.
Thanks alot everyone you have all given me some more options for making PCB's.
Bookmarks