Silkscreening pc boards (Picstep)

[CNC Darren]

I had been asked about how I do this earlier and now that the holidays are winding down I got a chance to take a few pics of the way I do it. Some of the pics are not the greatest as the lighting in the my garage isnt the greatest.
Here are a few pic of the screen. This screen has the Picstep board and inerface board found on this web site http://www.fromorbit.com/ thanks go out to Garfield2 for the design.

CNC Darren

[CNC Darren]

here is the printing steps:

1. Put a little ink on the screen.
2. Flood ink over image.
3. Put a little pressure on the squeegee and pull it across the image.
4. Pray that it printed right, tho if it doesnt it will wash right off with laquer thinner.

CNC Darren

[CNC Darren]

If the print looks good it gets dried for a few minutes.

[CNC Darren]

Now for the echant tank, the setup I use may look kinda funny but it works well. The tank has an inner and outer wall, the echant goes in the inner tank and the outer section is for a hot water jacket which is supplied by the crock pot and a small fountain pump I got at harbor freight for $8. There is an airpump that runs a bubler in the bottom of the echant tank to provide aggitation to help etch the copper off the board. I usually try to keep the echant around 100 degrees, at that temp it will etch a board in under 5 minutes.

[CNC Darren]

In goes the board and the wait begins. I usually check it every 1.5 minutes. Once the copper is gone it is pulled from the tank, rinsed, dried and cut to finished size it gets the holes drilled and is ready for componets.
If you have any questions ask! I'll be happy to give more details if i have them
CNC Darren

Ps the hard part for doing this is making the screen, I work for a large silk screen printing company and have been doing this for over 10 years so i have access to all of the eqipment. One of the things on the to build list tho is a pcb mill because it would be much eaiser to mill and drill it by cnc.

[CNC Darren]

Forgot to mention. Once the holes are drilled and i'm ready to start soldering the components on a little lauqer thinner and the ink comes right off, makes a nice protective layer so the copper doesnt oxidize.

[santiniuk]

Excellent post. After building the picstep boards your method looks so easy !

It's a shame I would not have a clue on how to make a screen.

But it's interesting to see how it's done.

Cheers.

[MrBean]

Wow. Thats really cool. Any chance of sharing some info on how you make the screen. Material etc...
It'd be really nice to make the top screen the way you show.

Regards Terry.....

[BobLWeiss]

I used to work at a screen printing place when I was younger and I would have never thought of using it to do boards. What kind of ink did you use? The screen you used has to be super fine huh? We did t-shirt decals and I hated that job

How did you produce your film?

Good work!!

[da21]

Excellent post , so is it very hard or out of the realms of a diy'er to make a silkscreen for this purpose , or do we find a good print screen company and buy him a few beers for the effort


Dave

[sbrpollock]

Yes Excelent posts!.....Very Excelent posts!

Most of the things people do on this site were once thought to be out of the realm of the do it yourself comunity.

To my understanding, "silk screen" is the method used by the printed circuit board industry.

CNC Darren:
Many people once thought that building CNC machinery, and CNC controllers was something only the big industrial companies with lots of money and lots of recources could do. But, many talented people on this forum have proven that assumption to be false. All it took was for a few people with some ingenuity to find out some details of how it was done, and they found ways for us little guys to do it!

I'll bet that if you teach us how a big company makes silk screens, eventually someone here will find a way to adapt the process to our recources so we could do this too at home.

Teach us a little about how a big company does silk screening.

I for one would like to know more about it!

[da21]

found trawling the internet
these could be useful as a guide to diy silk screening
although i have not try'd it as yet

http://printer-central.com/articles/...tructions.html

http://www.986disposable.com/site_pa...ting_guide.htm

Dave