PCBS WITH POWDER coat

The toner transfer technique of PCB production should be a essential in every maker’s bag of tricks. That being said, it’s a far from suitable option with a great deal of things that can go wrong, spoiling hours of work. [Ryan] believes he has a much better option up his sleeve, still utilizing warm triggered toner, however replacing the laser printer with a powder finish gun as well as a laser engraver.

[Ryan] is utilizing a powder finish gun he chosen up from Amazon for about $100. The theory behind it is simple: bits of toner coming out of the gun are statically charged, as well as bonded to the grounded copper clad board. In genuine powder coat shops, this finish is baked, resulting in a completely hard, mirror-like finish. [Ryan] skipped the baking step as well as instead with the powder coated board into a laser engraver where the PCB style is melted onto the copper. After that, laundry the board off, etch it, as well as Bob’s your uncle.

What’s truly fascinating about this technique of PCB production is that it doesn’t need a extremely high power laser. [Ryan] was really having a issue with the toner burning with his laser engraver, so it may be possible to fabulous PCBs with a high power handheld laser, or even a Blu Ray laser diode.