Category: Electronic Components

How To Make A PCB Using A Laser Printer

When working with electronic circuits, sooner or later we feel the need to make our own PCBs to get a more functional and better looking circuit board.

I already made a video in the past to show how that could be done, for simple circuits, by drawing the circuit manually on the copper clad with a special kind of pen that uses an ink impervious to the chemicals needed to etch the PCB.

This time, I am presenting you a different technique, that allows you to draw the traces, and also the silk layer, with any of the design tools of your choice available on the Internet and the market in general. All you need to have is a laser printer. You can refer to this newer video for a demonstration of the process.

The whole process works on the concept that the printouts of the laser printers are made with a toner that has the characteristic of being able to protect the copper from the etching chemicals, like the ink from the pen in the original video. This is because the toner is made with a sort of plastic material.

Unfortunately, we cannot use a laser printer to print the masks directly on the copper clad, because the PCB boards are too thick for the printer. Therefore, we need to find a way to print on paper and then tranfer the printed ink to the copper afterwords.

This is made possible by a certain quality of glossy paper that do not allow the toner to stick permanently on its surface when exposed to heat. Even paper from magazines that are printed on glossy paper works relatively well for this to happen. However, there are specialized papers, that are designed specifically for this, which are called Thermal Transfer Paper For PCBs. A quick search on-line will give you plenty of places where you can buy it at a relatively modest price.

Once you have your PCB design ready and printed on such paper, the process to create PCBs becomes really straightforward.

First step is the transfer of the traces drawing to the copper. The copper needs to be perfectly clean, so it is always better to use a piece of steel wool to scrape away copper oxide and other dirt from the copper surface. Just move the wool in a circular fashion to remove all the particles of oxide from the copper clad and make sure to use gloves, otherwise the contact with the skin of your hands will soon oxidize again the copper.

Once all the oxide is removed, you need to deep clean the copper to remove any particle of dust from it. To do so, you can use some alcohol. Once done, let the board stand for a a while to make sure it is completely dry.

Then lay the board on the printout, making sure the copper is in contact with the drawing. Wrap the paper all around the board to make sure it will not move during the transfer process.

Once the PCB is wrapped with the paper, put it on the table copper-side up and use an iron at the max temperature, with no steam, to heat uniformly the whole surface of the paper and the pcb wrapped in it. Be careful not to burn yourself in the process, of course. You do not need to press hardly, the weight of the iron is just enough. Just make sure you keep moving the iron so that the whole surface is heated uniformly. Do that for a while, until the copper clad becomes almost as hot as the iron. Don’t worry about burning the paper. it is not going to happen. Paper burns at 451 F while the iron, even at the hottest temperature, doesn’t normally go over 400F.

Once the paper and the clad are well heated, put aside the iron and unwrap the board, making sure that when you remove the paper from the copper side you do that slowly and uniformly. The ink from the printout will now have moved from the paper to the copper.

Second step is the actual etching. Use a plastic container, fill it with some ferric chloride solution, enough to cover the whole pcb, then dump the board in the solution. Once the board is in the solution, you’ll notice that the ferric chloride starts changing color. From the initial brown color, it starts becoming darker and darker. This happens because of the copper on the board that starts dissolving in the solution.

While the etching process continues, try to agitate the solution periodically, which will speed up the reaction. A warmer room will also help. Every now and then, check the status of the board and remove it from the solution as soon as you don’t see any more copper on the surface of it.

Once the etching is completed, remove the PCB from the solution and start rinsing it immediately, to stop the reaction that would continue to attack the remaining copper on the surface.

You now need to remove the toner film from the copper traces, otherwise you will not be able to solder the components on it. To do so, use a Lacquer thinner on a piece f paper or cotton and work slowly a little bit at a time. Do this in a well ventilated area. Solvent vapors are both unpleasant to breath and harmful.

Third step is to drill the holes. It is only necessary if you use pass through components, of course. If you use surface mounted components, this step is not necessary, unless you need holes to hold in place the board.

Finally, the fourth and last step is to do another transfer, on the components side of the board, to transfer the drawing for the silk layer. The procedure is exactly the same, but this time the toner will be lay down directly on the board support, not on the copper.

You can see how this process allows you to quickly repeat the whole procedure on as many boards as you like. You just need to print multiple copies of the layouts on the thermal paper and go through the previous four steps.

Hope yo liked this procedure, and don’t forget to go watch the corresponding video, so you will see exactly how this procedure works.

Fundamentals Of Electric Circuits

Some basic nomenclature and information on electric circuits.

When we think of an electric circuit, the first thing that comes to mind is a bunch of electric and electronic components put together to make a device that provides a certain functionality.

This is totally right, of course, but it is not a precise definition of an electric circuit. In fact, circuits can be defined in different ways, depending on the particular aspect of them that we want to highlight.

If we want to define a circuit with respect to the wave length of the voltage and current that the circuit handles, we will distinguish between “lumped” and “distributed” circuits.

If instead we want to highlight the kind of electric or electronic components the circuit is made of, then we need to talk about linear and non-linear circuits.

And, finally, depending on the temporal stability of the components, we can talk about “time-invariant” and “time-variant” circuits.

And, of course, we can consider combinations of the properties and, therefore, combinations of different circuit types.

In this article, I will go through the above list of circuit types and provide a proper definition and description of each one of them. Combination of those types will lead to combined definitions and descriptions of the basic types. However, in this context, I will go through only the basic types of circuit, leaving to you the task to provide definitions and descriptions of the combinations.

Lumped and Distributed Circuits

Let’s go now into more details about these kind of circuits. What differentiates these circuits is the size of their components compared to the size of the wavelength of the electric current flowing through them. Hum, well, I guess we need to back up a little bit first. Let’s start with the types of current.

We have two kind of currents: the direct current, or DC, and the alternate current, or AC. DC current always flows in the same direction and never changes. AC current has usually the shape of a sine wave, or some other shape that periodically inverts the direction of the current. The number of times the current inverts its flow depends on the number of times the voltage flips its polarity. When the Voltage goes from positive to negative n number of times in a second, we say that its frequency is n and it is measured in Hertz.

Since the flow of the current in a conductor is not instantaneous, it makes sense to think that a change in the voltage at the ends of a conductor makes the current change progressively through the conductor. And if the voltage keeps changing back and forth, so does the current. At the end, both the instantaneous values of the current and the voltage across the length of the conductor follow in space the same shape of the voltage changes (in time) applied at the ends of the conductor. So, if the voltage changes in time like a sine wave at the ends of the conductor, it will follow a similar shape in space throughout the length of the conductor. The length of such a sine wave in space throughout the conductor is called wavelength of the voltage, or the current. Such length in space depends on the length in time of the corresponding voltage applied at the ends of the conductor.

We can calculate the wavelength using the following formula:

The Greek letter “lambda” represents the wavelength, the f represents the frequency of the voltage, which is how many times the voltage goes from positive to negative and back in one second. And, finally, the letter ‘c’ represents the speed of light. Yes, you got it right, it is the speed of light!

When the wavelength is much longer than the physical size of the components of the circuit, we say that it is a lumped circuit, because the components are just small lumps with respect to the wavelength itself. In such a case voltage and current are practically constant across the whole length of the component.

When the wavelength is comparable with the physical size of the components of the circuit, we say that it is a distributed circuit, because the components are so big compared with the size of the wavelength that the wave itself is distributed across them. In such a case voltage and current will be different in different sections of the component, at any instant in time.

Distributed circuits cannot be analyzed with normal algebra equations. For those, it is necessary to heavily use calculus. Example of such circuits are the microwave circuits, those used to deal with radars and satellite signals.

Linear and Non-Linear Circuits

A component is defined as linear if it can be represented in a I-V (current-voltage) diagram with a straight line.

A component is defined as not linear if its representation on a I-V diagram is not a straight line.

Simply put, a linear circuit is one made with only linear components, while a non-linear circuit is one that has at least one non-linear component.

Note the difference: for a circuit to be linear, ALL the components must be linear; for a circuit to be non-linear, it is enough that ONLY ONE component is non-linear. All the other components can be linear and still the whole circuit is non linear.

Time-Invariant and Time-Variant Circuits

Difference between time-invariant and time-variant circuits is also straightforward.

A time-invariant component is one for which the measurements that define it never change over time.

A time-variant component is one for which the measurements that define it can change over time.

As a result, a time-invariant circuit is one made only with time-invariant components. A time-variant circuit is one made with at least one time-variant component. This is a subtle definition, very similar in its form to the one for linear and non-linear circuits.

Circuits in Series and in Parallel

One last thing I would like to discuss about circuits in general is related on their topology or, in other words, on how the components in a circuit are connected to each other.

There are two main configurations of connected components:

  1. components in series
  2. components in parallel

Components are said to be connected in series when they are traversed by the same current.

Components are said to be connected in parallel when the voltage on each one of them is the same.

When we talk about connections in series and in parallel, of course, we refer to components directly attached to one another, at least on one terminal, or lead. Components that are far away in the circuit diagram, or that are not directly connected together cannot be defined as in series or in parallel.

So, now, can you tell me what kind of circuit is the one at the very beginning of this article? Put your answer in the comments and let’s see who gets it right.