How to make your own PCB

Each circuit design need a final touch to make it work. There are two ways, kind of free air soldered together components or very elegant Printed Circuit Board. With a laser printer and few other bits and pieces we can make it happen.

Step one:

Cut copper coated laminate board to the PCB prototype dimensions. The boar must be perfectly clean to provide proper adhesion for the toner.

Step two:

Grab some TV program and cut one A4 size paper sheet. Using monochrome laser printer, print bottom layer on it and cut PCB view at the corners, leaving 10-15mm of the paper outside the board view.

Step three:

Wrap laminated PCB with the paper cutout and heat it up using hot iron (settled at approx 160C - wool/2-3min). After toner is heated up it starts to stick to the copper layer. After board is cooled down, place it in bowl with water for approx 5min. After paper is softened it can be easily removed and ''toner'' tracks can be inspected and corrected with permanent marker if necessary.

Step four:

Etching time :D I am using B327 product and must say it works very well. Copper side of the board is always faced down and fluid temperature is between 40-60C. Whole process takes around 10-20min. After ''the magic'' is done we can remove rest of the toner left on the board with P500 sand paper and some water.