Press n peel pinholes

[electrosonic]

Any idea what causes these?  Moisture on the board? Dust on the press n peel? Make of laser printer?

Andrew.

[Govmnt_Lacky]

Try upping your dpi count or changing your printout quality. Don't go TOO high though as this may cause some toner smearing on the PnP. This varies printer to printer.

[Mark Hammer]

Do you mean pinholes that look like a newspaper photo close up?

If so, then that would probably be a printer-setting issue (not a printer quality issue).  There may be a setting in the printer driver window for making the toner quality darker and optimizing the print quality.  It sounds to me like your printer is currently dumping juuuuuuuussssst enough toner onto the paper/PnP to make things seem black, so as to economize on toner.

OOPS: Lackey beat me to it this time!

[R.G.]

Some printers/toners/software is better than others. Also printing settings, printer substrate, phase of the moon and seconds left to play.

Worse yet, which one is best varies, as noted. The only thing to do is (1) practice and (2) adjust as you go.

One good attitude to adopt is that you may need to invest in some materials that you absolutely know you're going to throw away after you use them, and consider this to be a cost of education and skill development.

[deadastronaut]

print only the areas that you need toner on i/e text/design/logo...then all the other (large) areas that should be toner leave blank and use use paint instead .  saves toner , and ferric won't eat through the paint.

just border the important bits....i haven't used press n peel, only glossy photo or mag paper...

[mremic01]

I get those little holes here and there if I use a lighter toner setting. For PCBs, I get the best transfer with the 'plain paper' setting. For enclosures, 'thicker paper' gives me a thicker layer of toner. Even when there's a good solid layer of toner, the ferric chloride will still eat through it in some spots and leave tiny holes. The longer you leave it, the more holes it eats through the toner. To avoid this, I paint over the toner, except where it borders text and graphics. You can even put masking tape over parts, then paint the masking tape to  sort of seal it. That makes it much easier to get the paint off after your etch is done.

[electrosonic]

Here is what I am talking about -


I am actually electro etching with copper sulfate and about 2 amps DC. This was for ten minutes, shorter times may work better. I touched up with a sharpie. I have since bought a couple of better pens which should give better resistance to the etch.

Andrew.

[mremic01]

Here is what I am talking about -


I am actually electro etching with copper sulfate and about 2 amps DC. This was for ten minutes, shorter times may work better. I touched up with a sharpie. I have since bought a couple of better pens which should give better resistance to the etch.

Andrew.

I've found that sharpies just don't put on a thick enough layer of ink to avoid what you're getting there. Try paint or nail polish. It looks like you got holes in a square shape around the crap graphic, so you'll want to paint as close to the actual crab and text as you can. If you get shallow pinholes, you should be able to sand them out, but the ones in your photo look to be about as deep as the etch itself, and if you're getting that much eaten away all the way through the toner, you probably need to start with a thicker layer of toner.