Thursday 20 December 2012

Making PCB's..thinking of manufacturing a few bits

So this week I've been experimenting making PCB's using a great freeware package for windows ExpressPCB


I'm using the toner transfer method, laser printing onto glossy paper and then heat transfering the toner onto the copper clad board (ironing the back of the paper on the hottest setting!) I'm then soaking off the paper and etching the boards using Ferric Chloride. Here's a board thats the result of this process.


The board above is for a simple 4 - 1 passive mono mixer which is based on the ones I've made for my CMOS synth stuff. I just wanted something relatively simple to make to get to grips with making the pcb's. Below is the resulting prototype a TINY mixer.


And another shot of her getting tested...


So I plan to make a couple of these for friends and maybe some more for myself, I realised that this board could also be built up with full size pots and audio connectors (jack/phono etc) and stuck in an enclosure so I am going to release a pdf of the board for if people wanted to build there own but I need to do a bit of documentation first. I may do a few boards and offer then for sale. I have more plans for PCB making though and have a few more ideas for small unique things I can make and maybe sell...so stay tuned!

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