• Trying a couple layers..

    eric04/07/2020 at 23:27 1 comment

    The other boards are just examples. I actually need a breadboard-able RJ45, Amazon sell these for like 6-7$ each. 

    I'll try to make one. 

    I magnetated a square to the table with a big magnet underneath. So I can zap the board, re-coat & repeat. Gonna try 3 layers.

  • some shrinkage in large fields

    eric04/05/2020 at 19:14 0 comments

    I tried another board with large fields, I see shrinkage afterwards along the direction of laser travel. Might need to color these in with sharpie in certain cases, or do the borders & use paint/tape etc. I don't see this as a big problem, as long as I'm not fixing little stuff I'm happy. 

  • Trying Lightburn

    eric04/05/2020 at 19:06 0 comments

    Burned one at 5% and 2200 mm/s and it's nearly perfect. But it's crooked & warped. Not going to bother  wasting time on a pic. The software only accepts jpg, so I have to extract the image from the PDF. Then resize so it's right. The jpg is straight, but the print is way off. 

    So I'm trying Lightburn which imports PDFfiles, burning one now. The other possibility is the cable is getting hung up? We'll see. I can't get it to light the low power for testing size, but I used a big enough board to guess & it seems like it's going to work. I'd like to etch one of these eventually, since I have lots of acid just sitting here. FeCl 

  • Test board #5

    eric04/04/2020 at 22:04 0 comments

    10% @ 1900 mm/s

  • Test board #4

    eric04/03/2020 at 16:36 0 comments

    SD card for scale

    Getting there....

  • Test board 3

    eric04/03/2020 at 05:12 0 comments

    Try something hard:

    I would not consider attempting this with any other home method. But maybe above this too, some problems in the tight spots. But then I notice the one I printed:

    oops. Maybe it would have worked if I made it full size. Fail of the hour...

    Board 4 is coming in about 1 hr...

  • Another test board & focus ramp

    eric04/02/2020 at 20:36 0 comments

    This is the ramp to check my focus, to the right is on the table, to the left is raised 3/4". Bottom line is 40% laser, 6th from the bottom is 15%. I still see smoke @ 15%, but I'm going to try it on the rest of the board.

    So I shot this at table height @ 15% laser.

    This is most certainly usable, I'd etch it but it's a mistake design I don't need. There's no voids or any of those missing spots you get with the paper peeling method. Just a nice layer everywhere it was intended to be. No guessing with the iron. Plus I'm washing my hands quite a bit with the leaky pickle jar powder gun. As soon as the real one gets here (movement now) this thing is going back to killing flies.  

  • Test board 1

    eric04/01/2020 at 19:47 1 comment

    Laser power @ 85%, probably too high. Could be scaling issues since I had to convert the pdf to a jpg for the software. close traces are touching, I'm thinking from heat transfer to surrounding powder. I very much like the consistent and void free layer of toner this applies though.

  • Label created.....

    eric04/01/2020 at 02:48 0 comments

    The guy STILL didn't ship the craftsman powder gun. Then I'm gonna have to leave it on the porch for 72 hrs.