PCBs on the kitchen table

[rurwin]

Made with Letraset transfers and marker pen and etched with the last bit of ferric chloride that was well over a decade old.
I've still got the knack.

Well maybe not quite...

It looks like I'll be putting both the IC and the RaspPi connector on the wrong side of the PCB.

[davidcoton]

Now I know why I haven't tried etching a PCB for several decades

Hope it works -- let us know!

[d_older]

pcb.jpg (46.08 KiB) Viewed 1606 times

I'll take your "decade" and multiply it by three - I got the Maplin "Double Strength" Ferric Chloride - through the post - when I was at college and I left there over 30 years ago. For this board I used Kicad, Injet on drafting film and a Maplin Bank Note Detector UV source. This was my first attempt at a i2c to 1 wire adapter - planning for dual - and it still works. A subsequent version, after I found I could go down to 0.3 mm, has been running for about 3 1/2 years now with 3 temperature sensors and 1 counter device.

Glad to see you're also reviving old skills - one thing the Pi has done for me.

Dave

PS. Surface mount is definitely the way to go - my biggest cost was in replacement drill bits - hence I only drilled the 6 Pi connections I needed.

[klricks]

Made my first FeCl3 etched board about 40 years ago using fingernail polish. Then used stick on transfers and proper etch pin.
In college about 30 years ago made some boards with negative photo etch process.
Right now I use a power supply board at work which was made using a Dremel tool to etch the traces. I didn't make that.

[Heater]

Excellent.

That's nearly as good as the PCB I made for my TTL digital clock with Nixie tubes back in 1974 !

Revisiting the art a few years ago I was surprised to find that working with the larger surface mount resistors, caps, LEDs etc was easier than all that hole drilling.