Exposing Photopolymer Laminated Copper Clad Boards With A Peachy

[BumpingSpheda]

Hey guys. Throwing this out there, no idea if it's been discussed before, or to what length. Bit of a noob in these waters so looking forward to hearing what you all have to say.

Using consumer grade piezo printers and conductive inks to "print" conductive circuits has been the "holy grail" of quickly prototyping circuit boards. Others have tried using solid ink printers to print the etch resist directly onto the board, while even others have tried using pigment inks and higher end Epson printers with a similar idea in mind (curing process for the pigment ink required to evaporate water and "solidify" pigment, two print layers also sometimes required, but you're still printing the etch resist directly onto the board). If you laminated your Copper clad board with a photopolymer film (such as PurEtch from CapeFearPress), could you not lay the board at the bottom of your printing reservoir, input the z-axis height manually into the Peachy software (the height of the board) and have the UV laser draw/expose your artwork onto/into the photopolymer?

Could you also "print" an adhesive backed, Copper clad flexible film into a variable z-axis "step" reading device to read the z-axis? Have a continuous vertical trace that's ground which is separated by a gap from a bunch of tiny "horizontal" traces that run into some type of digital reader. As the the salt water rises it closes the gap and depending on the water's height it sends a different signal to the reader which in turn would digest that input as a specific tone/frequency that gets sent to the mic input. No idea what kind of resolution could be achieve via this route, and the Copper would have to be tinned, I'm assuming, to prevent corrosion. I'm guessing the traces would have to be very fine to achieve high z-axis resolution, but figured I'd throw that one out there in the open, too, in case anyone can run away with it.

[Anuvin]

I am crazy excited to try a bunch of techniques that all lead to 3d printed circuitry. I will report in once I have something to report, but this is an interesting topic that lots of people will be chatting about when the Peachy gets out into the hands of the public.

[Aztecphoenix]

wouldn't you be able to just use the laser on the Peachy to expose everything but the etches and then just use a normal acid bath treatment,? (I might have that backwards, I haven't etched a circuit board since grade 9)

[BumpingSpheda]

wouldn't you be able to just use the laser on the Peachy to expose everything but the etches and then just use a normal acid bath treatment,? (I might have that backwards, I haven't etched a circuit board since grade 9)

You're correct if you're using a "negative" photopolymer film. When using PurEtch traditionally your photomask is a "B&W" negative and the exposed areas of the film take longer to develop (once developed leaving you with a positive image). So, if you're using PurEtch you want the 405nm laser to basically "draw" your circuit. If you were using a negative photopolymer film you'd want the laser to "color" everything BUT your circuit, or merely outline your circuit. Depends entirely on what etch resist/developer combination you're using.

If you read up on PurEtch it's quite an impressive product, imo. Whether or not you need that kind of detail retrieval (especially considering we might be talking about very rudimentary circuit prototyping here), and if it's worth the somewhat premium price tag, is entirely up to you.

[jjmouris]

I would guess you could use a much more powerful laser with the same mirror assembly and software to just burn the copper film where you don't want it. Basically turn the Peachy into a very cheap laser engraving machine.

[Pete]

The pegasus from fsl3d is supposed to be able to do boards like this....if you prefer drill the board in the corners you could line up dual sided.....seems like a relatively easy thing to implement as most can software puts out gcode.

[rylangrayston]

Such a Great idea... Quick somebody do this !!
Etch the words Peachy Printer into a pcb with the peachy printer... post lots of pics, and we will do an update and show everyone!!

[EthanSpitz]

Such a Great idea... Quick somebody do this !!
Etch the words Peachy Printer into a pcb with the peachy printer... post lots of pics, and we will do an update and show everyone!!

As an electrical and computer systems engineer, highly looking forward to this...

[BumpingSpheda]

Really? So the stock laser is powerful enough, you think? What do you guys think of this project?
http://www.head-fi.org/t/679185/the-...#post_10568627
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:341212

[Pete]

I found some scraps of photoboard and some decade old ferric choliride in my bits box so I figured I'd give this a try.....it's under exposed and over etched but I think you can see the logo text, ish!



I've got a couple more attempts worth of material so I'll have another go tomorow. The logo is 20*45mm so it's pretty promising on first glance.