Homemade Printed Circuit Board
Here is how I make my homemade printed circuit board.
This homemade printed circuit board will be for the 12 volt photocell. I start by cutting a peice of single sided copper clad board to the size I want. In this case it will be 3/4 inch by 1 and 1/2 inch. Then I cut a peice of perf board the same size. The perf board will be used as a template to lay out the hole pattern for the components of the printed circuit board.
This is the printed circuit board layout of the components, this is the bottom side showing the copper traces with the top side components lightly added.
In this picture I marked the holes in the perf board where I want to place the components with a sharpie.
With the holes marked I lay the perf board on top of the copper clad board and drill the holes. I used a 3.00 drill for the plus 12v, the neg, and the load connections. The rest of the holes are drilled with a 1.50 drill bit.
Here is the copper clad board with the holes drilled.
Here is the pc board with the traces drawn in. I used a fine point sharpie marker to draw the traces. It's very important that before you draw the traces make sure the copper is clean. I use rubbing alcohol and a paper towel. Once clean keep your fingers off the copper or you will leave a fingerprint on the pc board. Again it's very important to keep it clean.
Pour enough of PCB etchant solution in a plastic or glass container to cover the printed circuit board. Drop the pc board in and wait for the copper to be removed. It took about 20 to 25 minutes for this one.
I removed the pc board after about 10 minutes just to check on the process and you can still see a lot of copper. Back in the solution for another 10 or fifteen minutes.
After 25 minutes all the copper is gone except under our trace lines. Just rinse the etchant solution off with water to stop the etching process.
Remove the sharpie lines with alcohol and you have a homemade printed circuit board. You can now place and solder the components to the pc board. This is how I make my homemade printed circuit boards, not real pretty but they work and are very inexpensive to make. If you would like to share with others how you make your printed circuit boards then add your project here.
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