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Tuesday, 24 April 2012

Printing PCBs on a junked Epson printer


When it comes to making PCBs at home really quickly, there’s not much to improve upon with Ryan‘s bodged up Epson printer that prints an etch mask directly on a piece of copper clad board.
Like most of the direct to copper PCB printer conversions we’ve covered ( 1, 2, 3 ), [Ryan]‘s build relied on an Epson printer and Mis Pro yellow ink. The Mis Pro ink is one of the most etch-resistive substances that can be shot out of an inkjet printer, and Epson printer cartridges use a piezo pump that is perfect for squirting ink out on command.
After tearing the printer apart and lifting the print head a bit, [Ryan] needed a proper feed system to control where on the copper he was printing. He managed to make a board carrier out of a sheet of aluminum. By taping down the copper clad board, everything seems to work phenomenally.
After the break you can check out how fast [Ryan] can print out a fully etch-resisted PCB. It’s not improbable that he could produce a few dozen boards an hour; something our toner transfer PCB production method would kill for...!!!

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