DID SOMEONE SAY YOU "HAVE TO" USE LASER PRINTER TR

[analog kid]

Now I may be mistaken but I have heard two things over and over again, One is the you can't use just any paper to do iron on pcb tranfers. Which is true I assume but the Photo paper method rather than PnP  I have seen alot  say that you have to get just the right brand of paper. Maybe i got lucky but I not having $$ to throw out on trying every PhotoP in the store I just grabbed the box that my mom had been using to print digital pics  (happened to be HP Glossy Photo Paper)
... and ( well this is the second thing I have heard over and over , that you absolutely MUST use a Laser Printer for transfers to work!!, maybe I misunderstood and everyone here already knows this works, most likely but anyway) next with me also not having access to a Laser Printer I decided to just make a hard copy on my ink jet of several sized out PCB's that I'd like to do and send it with my wife to her office, along with two sheets of the Glossy Photo.  So I asked her to just go in the COPY ROOM when noone was around and  pop a sheet of the glossy in and run off two copies of my PCB's . One copy regular and one with a little darker setting.

Anyhow, She came home with them that evening and they looked fairly clear. (being 2nd-3rd generation by then) and I commenced to cut out the layouts. I didn't want to waste my good transparent FR-4 board so I sized out a swatch of R.S. double side pcb. Laid it on the table. Turned the iron on and let it sit on the copper for a second. (or course I sanded and degreased the copper first)Then sat the cutout transfer onto it, it stuck right away, and then just ironed , ironed , ironed, moving all around for a few minutes with no distinct pattern or technique.
I had heard that you should never pull a pcb transfer off right away and it helps to put water on it first so I tossed it in some tap water first for a few minutes.
When I peeled away the layers of the photo paper, I WAS AMAZED!! I didn't expect it to take but if it did , definitely NOT to be PERFECT! I thought it'd at least be a better way to get the design ONTO the copper so I could 'sharpie' it easier.  BUT NOPE , it was a perfect transfer of the PCB as printed.   I then threw it into an etch bath to see if the toner was tough enough, and it didn't touch my traces!!! A perfect(to me at least) PCB!!!
Now I did figure this to be a lucky shot. So I have been doing another and another, etc.... to see if this was the case. And I seem to have a VERY DEPENDABLE METHOD here.  
Just print my layouts on my cheapo printer, send them to work with my wife with a sheet of Picture paper . and viola!  More boards than I can churn out when she gets home!
 as I said I'm sure everone knows this works but I was so trilled after hearing ..."must have a laser printer"... for so long that I just HAD to post my results.
 Oh Yeah!  
SO FAR >>> ZW-44 Overdrive, 4ms Tremulus Lune, (another) Ross Comp clone, Small Clone<<<<    On my new pro looking pcb's .. Now I want to redo every board I ever made to look like a REAL PCB. :wink:

[Wild Zebra]

Pretty much any "Industrial" or office type printer will use toner not ink that becomes fused onto the paper as it goes through the fuser.  You could go to any local Kinko's or what have you and get the same results.
"Only laser" I would probably say any printer "except inkjet" would work.

 It sure is nice your wife works in the office.  I work at a publishing company with six big ole printers so its nice.  Glad it worked.

[R.G.]

What's magic is not the printer technology, but the composition of the pigments. Laser printers just happen to have a pigment that's essentially a mixture of carbon black and hot melt glue. If you had an inkjet that had similar gook, finely dispersed in the proper liquid ink, it ought to work. It's possible that some printers have inkjet ink like this. But laser printers are designed to do the hotmelt toner.

Sometimes you get lucky.

[analog kid]

thanks for the opinions guys.
BUT Once again, I was saying that I had her use a COPIER(xerox machine,etc..) I was just mentioning about the inkjet that I used it at home to make the hard copy of my layouts (fitting as many close together as possible) to give to her to take and copy onto the Photo Glossy.  just in case I made it confusing. I was not saying a got those results running the glossy through an Ink Jet.
Reason I posted it is that I just don't hear people talking much about the really perfect results they get from copying through just a regular old COPY MACHINE. the kind of thing you can walk up to about anywhere! Grocery Stores, P.Office, etc....It's usually just Laser Printer,"  ", "   " .....

[Wild Zebra]

Pretty much any "Industrial" or office type printer will use toner not ink

You could go to any local Kinko's or what have you and get the same results

It sure is nice your wife works in the office. I work at a publishing company with six big ole printers so its nice. Glad it worked.

maybe you missed it.  I wasn't confused.  I do the same thing, but I agree there seems to be a general, only use a "home" laser printer thing going on.  Again nice to see you got a good line on it.  I haven't tried glossy photo paper I still have a bunch of PNP laying around

P.S. not being snobby just clarifying

[R.G.]

Ah. Copier.

That's toner, and that works. Same gook. The gook's the key.

The problem is that copiers are not all exactly 1:1 reproducers, and worse yet may reproduce at different ratios in both X and Y directions. Probably you get away with it if you have ICs of no more than 16 pins, as the accumulated error is small enough, but I have seen copiers that would not come out what a 16 pin DIP fitting because of the optical scaling.