Laser Printers And Pcb'S: Fill & Download for Free

Yes, but only for prototyping. The toner used in laser printers can resist acid, so it’s possible to print your circuit board design on paper using a laser printer; transfer the toner to a blank copper-clad board; then dip the board in acid, which eats away the exposed copper, leaving behind your circuit design.(Image Source: Create High-Resolution PCBs using PulsarProFX gear)This method allows a circuit board to be produced rapidly and cheaply. It’s used by hobbyists and sometimes even companies because it’s fast, and cheap compared to professional fabrication services: it might only costs ten or twenty dollars in materials and take a couple of hours, compared to maybe a couple hundred dollars and 24 to 72 hours using a professional fast-turnaround PCB manufacturing service. While the professional services produces much higher quality boards, the cost and time delay is a drag if you just need to quickly build and test a circuit.The process look a bit like this:1. Print PCB design with laser printer. Because you can’t feed a blank circuit board through a laser printer, the design has to be printed onto paper first, and then transferred. Glossy paper is best for the job as it transfers the toner easily rather than sticking to the paper, there is also special transfer paper like the stuff used to transfer designs to t-shirts. Some hobbyists have found that magazine paper works very well, so they just tear some pages out of a magazine and load that into the printer.(Image source: Take Your PCBs from Good to Great: Toner Transfer also a good guide for this kind of stuff)2. Transfer the design to the copper-clad board. Circuit boards start out life as a blank copper-clad sheet of fiberglass. The printed design is placed faced-down onto the copper-clad board and then heat and pressure is applied, which sticks the toner to the copper. Hobbyists have done it using a clothes iron or a modified document laminator.(Image Source: Digital Salinometer)3. Remove backing paper. At this point, the toner is stuck to the copper on one side, and the paper on the other. The paper can then be removed by soaking the whole thing in water, and gently peeling or rubbing the paper off. What’s left is a copper-clad board with the PCB design transferred over to it.(Image source: Using Laser Printer Toner Transfer)4. Acid-etch. The board now has the toner masking the copper that you want to remain on the board. The copper you want to remove is exposed. The board is placed in a tub of acid, which will eat away the exposed copper. Common acids used include things like hydrochloric acid and hydrogen peroxide, but even salt and vinegar works although slower.(Image source: Etch circuit boards with common household chemicals | Make:)5. Remove toner. After etching, the toner needs to be removed to allow the components to be soldered on. The toner can be removed using plain water and some scrubbing, or with the help of acetone or nail polish remover. The end result is a circuit board with your desired circuit on it.For two-sided circuit boards, both sides need to be carefully aligned and etched, then holes and vias have to be drilled and plated as required.This process is similar to how PCBs are made in industry, but rather than using a toner-transfer method, an acid-resistant chemical is applied to the copper board and then selectively cured using UV light projected onto it through a PCB design like an overhead projector; the uncured acid-resist can then be washed off, leaving behind acid-resist in the pattern of the circuit design. The copper board is then etched using a similar method to the above, but done inside a machine that better controls and automates the process. The board may go onto further manufacturing stages such as drilling, masking (that green color you associate with PCBs is from the protective mask - the color is a dye and doesn’t have to be green), silkscreening (this is the printed text on the board that helps with assembly and serial numbers), and plating (the exposed copper pads are often gold or tin-plated to prevent oxidation, and to help solder bond).The linked image sources above all have more resources for learning more about etching PCBs with a laser printer.

MakiBox is just getting launched at the moment. The first printer project is the MakiBox A6 (http://www.makible.com/makibox-funding) which is the first printer that is both small and inexpensive at $300 for a kit and the size of a sheet of paper, but printing out big enough to make phone cases and other medium sized objects. We have big plans for extending the A6 with multi-color output (not just two color), laser cutting, and PCB making.We will also offer up less expensive materials and other parts for existing printers on http://makibox.com when it launches. We think that it is time for the technology to become more affordable than it currently is to help speed adoption.

Thank you for the A2A.To print your PCB layout, you will need a laser printer and an A4 photo paper or glossy paper.Things to remember on printing PCB layouts:Set the printout into black with both your PCB design software and printer settings.Always make sure to print on the glossy side of the paper.