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1-Wire i Rpi
Apendix 1 - making a PCB

Apendix 1 - making a PCB

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One can find many tutorials and movies about how a PCB should be made.  As a person who has made less than a dozen boards I do not attempt to compete with professionals.  I will just post some remarks, which can save you some time.

Printing - a ready layout of the board should be printed on a chalk paper.  You do not need to run to your store and pay for anything specific.  Use any page (printed!) from a color-magazine.  All that is important is that the page is not too thin. Otherwise the printer will not be able to pull it through.  Settings - default.  Easy ;)

Preparing the board - In order to clean it I used a stainless-steal cleaner, something similar to what you find on a standard kitchen sponge.  At the end remove any potential oils with a standard solvent.

PCB preparation

p>Transferring the toner onto the board - from the print-out I have cut-out a rectangle the size of the board itself.  The iron was set at maximum (3 stars).  I have placed a paper towel between the printout and the board.  1 minute on the 1st half, another on the 2nd half.  Than the whole board for 3 minutes.  Finally a board with the paper needs to be placed in a bowl with water.  Leave it there until the paper perls off by itself.  Before reaching the desired results I had to try 4 times:

  1. First - I was impatient and tried to perl the paper off too quickly - I scratched the toner off...
  2. Second - I tried with lower iron power (**) but the toner did not stick in many places
  3. Third - It was perfect but then I noticed that the print-out was not as a 'mirror', which made the whole thing useless
  4. Fourth - It was quite okay.  I have corrected the place where the toner peeled off with the paper with a thin, permanent marker.
PCB no mirror PCB ok PCB corrected
mirror image :( okay but with errors after corrections

Etching(?) - I have put a 1/4 from a 100 g. bag of the magic powder bought on local ebay into a bowl, added water, which was at 40-50oC and placed the boards inside.   I have stirred them from time to time with a plastic spoon.  After 10 minutes the water got cold. I placed the bowl into another bowl with hot water.  After 1/2h the unprotected copper disappeared leaving the toner-covered traces.

PCB trawienie PCB po trawieniu

Cleaning - after every unsuccessful toner transfer and after the etching(?) is finished, the toner needs to be cleaned off.  I have used the nail cleaner and it did the job slowly... Finding a bottle with acetone was the real revolution.  The toner would be washed off instantly.  Here is the final board:

PCB clean

Soldering- before reaching for the iron I have watched a few EEVBlog tutorials ("youtube soldering  tutorial eevblog"). The enthusiasm of the blog's author is an engagement of its own.  I bought a thin soldering wire (Sn60Pb40; wire; 0,35mm; 100g; F-SW26, No Clean; 2,5%), small tweezers... and soldered with joy!

PCB ready

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Created: Saturday, 06 April 2013 12:34
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