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Questions relating to designing PCBs
By lostangel556
Hi all,
I had a thought about this earlier in the day and was wondering if anyone has tried this.
In order to make my PCBs easier and quicker i was considering using an old cartridge and refilling it with acrylic based indian ink (like calligraphy ink). I should then be able to print direct onto my pcb and then heat using my panini press.

The theory is that the ink, being acrylic based will resist the etching process and provide very accurate pcbs with 2 small alterations to the printing method (filling the ink and rear feeding the printer). Heating would then help to embed the ink onto the copper.

Its basically a cheaper direct to pcb method without the need to buy a laser printer. (Also HP printers contain the head on the cartridge so removing for normal print is an added bonus). Any thoughts?
By MichaelN
I suggest you spend a while on Google, as there are already a bunch of people doing this. You don't want to be experimenting with different inks when others have already done the work (and screwed up a bunch of printers) to figure out what works. From memory, some people are even printing soldermasks with heat-curable inks.

You want to use a printer that can print CDs - the PCB is taped to the CD carrier for printing.
By lostangel556
Already been looking on google but finding it difficult to find a uk supplier of etch resist ink in formats other than the pen.

After a bit of research into the formula for the ink itself I found that i could spraypaint with a stencil which would work. This led me to the idea of acrylic ink in an inkjet. Thankfully im not too worried about breaking the printer as inkjets are 10 a penny these days plus the ink itself from a hobby shop is £4 for a 100ml bottle (avg 5 cartridges worth)
By MichaelN
lostangel556 wrote:Oops, never did look at ready made kits. Wonder if theyll work in a hp cartridge.
You could could give it a try, but personally I'd just copy what others have found to work well. Printers are pretty cheap these days, so I suppose it doesn't matter so much if you ruin a print head...
By lincon
MichaelN wrote:How hard did you look? I found the following in less than a minute on Google. I'm sure you could get suitable inks where you are & I highly recommend learning from other people's mistakes :) ... resist.htm laserjet 3030
is it really true that toner transfer is a lot easier and faster to set up?
By hamilton073
Select the photo you would like to print onto acrylic sheeting. You can print it at home if you have a laser printer; inkjet prints do not work. If not, you can take the photo to a copy shop and purchase a photocopy or, if you have a digital file of the photo, ask for a laser printout of the photo. Since fresh photocopies or laser prints work best for printing onto acrylic, do not complete this step until you are ready to complete the project. Note that the final image will be the reverse of the print or photocopy: if you are using non-transparent acrylic that cannot simply be turned around to display the image correctly, then ask for a reverse print or photocopy.

Ink Toner – Canon, Brother, Samsung