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Re: [TCML] PC boards

One of the better etchers is ammonium persulfate, you can pick it up of Ebay cheap. We used this when making PCB's in the research lab I worked at. Much safer to use that Ferric chloride, which we used before and switched. Rubber gloves and safety glasses are used but if it splashes on the skin, it does not cause any serious damage and can be washed off easily later. In fact, you may not know you have it on your skin and later a stain will show up where it was in contact with.
Use of an acid like HCl is really bad and dangerous. You cannot control the process and it under cuts the lands, plus it is nasty stuff and cleanup is messy. I have never heard of using an acid like that (or Nitric) ever for etching a circuit board. I have never heard of using these acids for PCB manufacture
Hydrogen Peroxide is an oxidizer and in higher concentrations, it is very dangerous and can cause explosions! It is used as a component of some rocket fuels in higher levels. It can burn the skin on contact and react with other chemicals and cause fires, explosions, etc. Do not play with the industrial stuff unless you really know what you are doing. The concentrated solution was used in making the bombs for the muslim attacks in the UK subways last year. Big brother pays attention to who buys the concentrated stuff. Plus it has a crappy shelf life once it is opened. 

Frank

At 07:34 AM 1/29/2008 -0600, you wrote:

Hi all,

I have absolutely zero experience with building PC boards
and since my patience doesn't usually hold up too well work-
ing with tiny things and my 45 year old eyes don't see things
up close anymore w/out visual correction, I kind of doubt
that I ever will at this point. However, the one thing that I do
realize from reading these threads on how to etch the tracks
is that these are some quite dangerous chemicals that are used
for this purpose. 30-35% hydrochloric acid solution is very
strong (the swimming pool supply muriatic acid is approximately
the same strength hyrdocholric acid solution). Muriatic acid re-
leases a visible suffocating vapor when the cap is removed and
the liquid acid will quickly attack aluminum or concrete. The
H2O2 (hydrogen peroxide) solution that you purchase at your
local drug store is 3% peroxide and 97% water! The extra oxy-
gen atom makes the normally stable water molecule very unstable
to release the rogue oxygen atom. A 30% peroxide solution would
be very corrosive and would severely bleach and burn skin upon
contact.I've heard that industrial strength 90% peroxide solution
poured on combustible material will cause spontaneous ignition!
Just a safety note - any chemical that can etch copper will likely
also "etch" human flesh! Be careful ....

David Rieben


----- Original Message ----- From: "Ale¹ Chlubný" <chluba1@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "'Tesla Coil Mailing List'" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, January 29, 2008 4:52 AM
Subject: RE: [TCML] PC boards



I'm using hydrochloride acid with hydrogen peroxide but with some
modifications.
Cool down concentated 30-35% HCl acid, it's required if you are going to
etch large boards or you have not a lot of acid, because reaction are
exothermic and high temperature isn't good for peroxide. Put the acid and PC
board into plastic container and add a few drops of concentrated 30%
peroxid. Don't add peroxid directly to PC board but in distant corner and
move with container to mix the solution (locally increased concentration of
peroxid can be dangerous for PC board). You can drive speed of reaction by
adding more peroxid. If you aren't overshoot amount of peroxide, cooper will
dissolve fast but without any bubbles and fumes. If it bubbles, it can be
due too fast reaction or high temperature. In this cases you can try to cool
down the solution.
This method is the fastest and provides more capacity, with 1 bottle of acid
you can make a lot of PCB.

Ales.



-----Original Message-----
From: tesla-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:tesla-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Scott Bogard
Sent: Monday, January 28, 2008 10:17 PM
To: tesla@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [TCML] PC boards


Thanks guys,
     I am already using perf board, but I have acquired
enough parts to make 5 drivers, so I figured PC board would
be the way to go.  also does anybody have any experience with
this etching solution, it sounds pretty good to me, as I
already have all the ingredients.
http://www.instructables.com/id/Stop-using-Ferric-Chloride-etc
hant!--A-better-etc/
Thanks again.

Scott Bogard.

BunnyKiller wrote:
> As far as perf boards go, they are fine if you like wires. I prefer
> the perfboard with the square copper tabs on the bottom. It
allows you
> to place components and then use solder bridges to route the path
> along the squares. If you need to correct a path, simply
heat up the
> solder in the area to be corrected and tap the board to
remove solder.
> The only disadvantage to this method is the required amounts of
> solder....
>
> Scot D
>
>
>
> Peter Terren wrote:
>
>> You can still make some pretty significant things on
perfboard with
>> point to point wiring.
>> Here is a packed mag-lev board with 4 IC's that still runs
fine after
>> 2 years museum use.
>>
http://tesladownunder.com/Magnetic%20levitation.htm#Magnetic%20Levita
>> tion
>>
>>
>> Even more extreme is this completely point to point art
piece. There
>> is no perf board, everything is point to point and
supported by the
>> connections to the supply rail. Still works after 20 years. 8 IC's
>> and perhaps 100 components
>> http://tesladownunder.com/Electronics.htm#Pyramid
>>
>> Peter
>>
>>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Tesla mailing list
> Tesla@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> http://www.pupman.com/mailman/listinfo/tesla
>
>


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