Sweet, thanks for the info, once I get some ink and the chip resetter I will be posting some pics, probably next weekend at this rate.
Cheers
Russell.
Russell, can you give me a pointer towards chip resetting ? Not a subject I know anythig about.
I guess you have a piece of hardware that resets the chip, but which one and where ? Is this only on epson cartridges, as I have an unused lexmark z26( I think) in the attic that might go in this direction.
Regards
John
It's like doing jigsaw puzzles in the dark.
Enjoy today's problems, for tomorrow's may be worse.
No prob John, as far as I know you buy the chip resetter and it resets the chip (bet you didn't see that coming) so that you can re-fill the cartridge and re-use it again. If you re-fill and don't reset the chip it will still think it is empty and tell the printer so you won't be able to use the re-filled cartridge.
I'm not sure where you will be able to get one over there but here I just looked for ink cartridge type shops and most of them have a re-fill section and the chip resetters.
The one I am ordering is $15.00 Au so they are not expensive.
As far as I know other manufacturers have this on their cartridges but not all, not sure which ones do and don't (except Epson...lol)
Russell.
Russell picture time
Circuit drawn in eagle for milling, exported as monochrome bit map at 300 dpi.
imported into Irfanview , Inverted then printed . Traces are 1.27 mm wide , outside trace .254 of mm , printed size is 32 mm * 19 mm .
(1) first attempt to Pcb , board not clean
(2) second Pcb , board cleaned , notice ink smearing
(3) third Pcb , lifted front rail another .5 mm
cleaned board with wet and dry then scrubbed with some Spree dishwashing
liquid and kitchen scourer , no pre-heating . Black ink .
Kym
Have been a bit busy a past couple of days, so here are the pics.
I bought this printer just to print pcb's, used it like a normal printer running 1mil copper
foil (spray adhesive tacked) to photo cards through it and about a month later i started
tearing into it. (that takes care of the warranty!)
I am not used to this camera yet, and some of the pictures might be a bit blurry, bad lighting, etc...
Documentation will be a bit sparse, so if you have any questions...
pics set #
1. rip back out and put in feeder guide.
2. reposition paper end sensor.
3. adjust head height
Just melted plastic using soldering iron, no metal was modified.
here is set 1.
Shot 1 make an absolute strait feeder path for the boards, you want to manually
feed a large piece of pcb halfway through this for a proper level guide as you tack melt the shims to the proper level, the paper path must clear the metal frame (left side of pic) side to side alignment is not too critical (as long as it clears the rail) as this can be controlled by printer settings in software.
shot 2 uses a notched photo card for feeding taped on pcb's...
shots 3,4,5, shimmed up mounting points, pic 4 mount was super glued to power supply
and secured with screw to metal rail.
shot 6 is a look at angled rail guide for keeping boards from lifting when getting fed through.
more to follow...
pics set 2 and 3, repositioned the paper sensor, head height...
first you pull off sensor off (and other crapo) of the yellow plastic mount, mark down how wires
are connected and the placement of the sensor on the small board and extend wires by 8 inches or so. (sensor <-> wires <-> small board)
I placed my sensor just behind the other side of the rail to be out of the way of the feeder tray.
make sure that wires will not touch ground when super-glueing sensor in the rail.
make sure sensor notch is lined up with rail opening when glueing.
For head height clearance, you will just put angled shims under the front of the printhead
assembly where it slides on the front rail.
The shims have been bent up on the ends so they will get greased properly when running.
The clearance i use is about 0.065~0.070", but you should manually slide the printhead over a test pcb and adjust accordingly before tacking in the shims to make sure the head clears.
There you have it.
Nothing flash here , my first trial etch.
cooked the board , only black dura brite ink , using
Ammonium Persulphate . Etch time about 6 minutes.
No need to clean ink off , as it fell of as I removed board
from etchant solution.
1 Cooked board
2 Etched
Room for improvment.
Kym
etch charts anyone?
Cool epineh, I have been looking at yahoo's group Homebrew_PCBs but cannot find the author of that pic.Originally Posted by epineh
Can you tell me where the pic is, do you have a link?
I have been googleing around for a test pattern like that to test inks/etchants
but have found only photo test charts.
Can anybody here create an etching test chart like the one epineh has shown here?
( in .ps or .pdf format would be nice
tia!
Last edited by C88mod; 02-12-2007 at 02:40 AM.
You guys are leaving me for dead...lol, nice work all round!!!
Kym, have you tried the magenta or yellow ink yet ?
C88mod, the etched board from the yahoo group was just in the gallery section, I can't remember exactly where but I think it was one of the first pages to load. I will have another look...
It would be interesting to take one of these printers back to point of sale and ask for warranty, just to see what they say, heh.
Russell.
holy crap this is cool! i havent been on the site much in the last year, but now i gotta go back and reread this whole post before i ask the obvious questions!
Russell its like this all my color carts are empty, so No ,
but will be my next step , Just wanted to see if it worked
and how well, still on the learning curve so to speak, hell
thats only my third etched board ever, the first was with
a dalo pen , and that was last friday .
Now to reassemble that Printer ( oops Pictures First)
Kym
Welcome aboard vacpress, glad to have more people joining in the insanity...lol
Russell.
Hi Russell, Must have been tired last night, cause i skipped right over it in the photo section , I found it and his yahoo id is wnnelson0, I will try to contact him and
see if he will release that file to me, so i can upload it here.
I was playing around with gimp last night and may upload an etch test chart soon...
Can you do double sided with this direct print method? Does the printer allow for accurate alignment?
Some excellent work there, thanks for letting us see it...
I just print all my layers at one shot side by side, rough cut, bake, etch, line up corner holes then pin them, start drilling, etc...
that way i can do 2, 4, 6, 8, layers in one shot.
I have not tried printing on a flipped board yet but i ran the same card through
4 times in cyan and its dead-on on all four prints onto a 1x1" test print.
I tryed cyan then printed in magenta but it was way off, i will re-align carts
to see if that will help.
Yeah, I can see why epineh' s pcb printer has perfect alignment by having a dedicated feed system for good prints.
My way might not be better for printing multilayers exactly on the same place yet
( i will see if the carts are aligned properly )
running the same print through the rollers trashes the next print (mostly dust)
but my hack takes up a little less desktop space and was a little easier to hack together IMHO.
stay tuned.
Yup fyffe555, the rails I have on my printer will allow for "homing" of the PCB to be printed, like a jig, I still have to put the strips on the card to align the PCB on the card carrier itself, but hopefully I will have time on the weekend, also my chip resetter will be here and I may be able to start etching!!! (well testing anyway...)
As C88mod mentioned, my setup is a little bulky, but it will have a nice home in my new shed, if I ever stop playing around with printers long enough to build it.
Russell.
Hi ALL
Today i am not " Green with envy " Today i am " Yellow with anticipation " .
Yes went down the street and brought one Durabrite yellow cartridge .
a few more tests??
1 yellow ink and photo paper setting ? direct from etch
2 yellow ink after a bit of cleaning
marked improvement . would you like to see some more ?
Kym
OK , My second test for today , this one at 1200 dpi and matte heavy weight paper. this looked better as printed ,
1 yellow etch 1 , after etching
2 cleaned 1 , after a bit of cleaning
Kym
Kym
Reduce the hole size on your patterns to the minimum that will print and etch. This stops etchback from reducing your annular ring and still gives you a nice center location for drilling.
Aaron
The future as i see it.
If this is to be trusted then you can print the PCB directly with componets just by chosing the right ink.
http://www.nanomarkets.net/products/...?prod=6&id=234
Bent
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