Turret Board "Silkscreen"

[vigilante397]

I'm working on a new amp build, and I thought it would be kind of neat to do the turret board on a scrap piece of acrylic (we'll see how it stands up to soldering temperatures ). I was thinking how nice it would be to cut it to size with a laser, then as I was doing my layout I started thinking about how nice it would be to have a silkscreen on turret boards for PCB-like convenience. Then it just kind of clicked in my mind, laser engrave the layout onto the board! This doesn't have to be done on acrylic, and frankly would show up better on literally any other material, but this kind of gives you an idea what I'm thinking about:

[Kevin Mitchell]

Woah! That looks interesting. It's always great to see something different 

The contrast reminds me - last night when verifying capacitor values (small coated ones with engraved markings) it was difficult to make out most of them without putting them under light and squinting. I wonder if engraved acrylic would cause a similar headache in my dungeon of a workshop.

[vigilante397]

I wonder if engraved acrylic would cause a similar headache in my dungeon of a workshop.

It absolutely would. The main reason I used acrylic instead of my usual fiberboard is that I'm fresh out of fiberboard Typical turretboard materials (fiberglass, epoxy, etc) would be much easier to read as the engraved part would most likely show up black.

[Kevin Mitchell]

Have you considered making your own clad boards with acrylic sheets? I mean all you really need is a sheet of copper foil and heat resistant adhesive. I've thought about it before but ya know - how often do people admire boards 

Could be a fun project.

[vigilante397]

Can't say I've ever thought of it. The closest I've done is spray paint a board after it's been etched then sand the top so the paint sticks in the troughs, giving a lovely colored PCB. But nowadays my home-etched boards are just for prototypes, anything that will actually get boxed up is usually a fabbed PCB. I'm getting lazier

[Marcos - Munky]

Wow, that board looks beautiful! Hope it stands up for soldering temperature.

Have you considered making your own clad boards with acrylic sheets?

I didn't heard of acrylic boards, but I remember those glass ones:
https://hackaday.com/2016/07/18/cnlohrs-glass-pcb-fabrication-process/

[thermionix]

as the engraved part would most likely show up black.

Would it be conductive?

Hope it stands up for soldering temperature.

Turrets get pretty hot.

[vigilante397]

Would it be conductive?

An excellent question. It very well could be, depending on the material. Didn't even think of that, good call.

Turrets get pretty hot.

They do indeed. I'm going to mount just a couple turrets on the board and solder something to it just to see how the board handles the heat before going through the effort of turreting the whole board.

[amptramp]

You might get a bit more heat resistance from polycarbonate.  Acrylic would need a very light touch on the soldering iron, probably insufficient to get a good joint before the turret started to move.  Polycarbonate would probably work better..

[EBK]

Acrylic would also need a very light touch when staking the turrets, to avoid cracking. (But, I'd bet it fails the heat test anyway.)

Perhaps temporarily mount the turrets in some cardboard, solder everything up, then glue the turret assembly to the acrylic?

[diffeq]

Cool idea. Would it work with other materials, like plywood?

Would it be conductive?

An excellent question. It very well could be, depending on the material. Didn't even think of that, good call.

A bigger CNC mill could solve the conductivity issue. 

[stallik]

The turret board on my recently made valve amp was constructed using PTFE board or so it says on the ampmaker website. It held up really well when I got silly with the heat.
Regarding the markings, they've come out really well but I can't help thinking that a certain 'painting by numbers' is creeping in...

[vigilante397]

So the good news is the acrylic board can totally take the heat of soldering on the turrets. Also I was careful (mostly) when staking the turrets to avoid cracking the board. The bad news is I ran out of turrets I haven't built an amp in a few months so I just had the turrets that were left over from the last build. But I've started stuffing the board, and so far no signs of melting



I also found a scrap of fiberglass board from the last build I did (not sure why I hadn't thrown it out yet, but anyway), so next time I play with the laser (probably Monday) I'll try it out on that board to see if it burns it to the point of being conductive. Science!

Cool idea. Would it work with other materials, like plywood?

A bigger CNC mill could solve the conductivity issue. 

I don't see any reason it wouldn't work with anything else. And this idea would absolutely work with a CNC instead of a laser, and I also have access to a large (36" x 48") CNC machine that would do the trick, but I'm really enjoying playing with the laser

[deadastronaut]

cool....light it up with leds too......

[vigilante397]

cool....light it up with leds too......

C'mon Rob, it's going to be inside a box, no one's even going to see it...

...totally thinking about it

[davent]

The turret board on my recently made valve amp was constructed using PTFE board or so it says on the ampmaker website. It held up really well when I got silly with the heat.
Regarding the markings, they've come out really well but I can't help thinking that a certain 'painting by numbers' is creeping in...

PTFE, well known as Teflon®, great heat resistant wire sheathing.
dave