Scratchy scratchy catchy shorty

[Yazoo]

Ever spent an hour or so scratching around a pcb with a pin, trying to remove shorts? That's what I did today - not for the first time. Wearing a jeweller's magnifying glass like a monocle, I scratched around an etched version of the excellent Hamlet delay, and this time it worked. I still don't know exactly where the short was, somewhere around the voltage doubler I think.

At this point, I don't care. I am just happy it is working. In the past I've done this on other builds and still not had a working build.

It does sound good though. 

[Ben Lyman]

I have absolutely done that. many hours. arrgghh.

A while back I happened on a method that may or may not have helped me avoid all that scratching, hard to say for sure.

Anyway, before I got out my trusty scratcher, I grabbed my continuity tester and started methodically touching the probes to adjacent traces and bingo, I heard a beep, scratched out the space between and it worked!

It worked in that case anyway, not to say it's foolproof or anything 

[ElectricDruid]

Try some fresh etchant? Or leave it in a bit longer? Or swish it about some more while it's in there?

Honestly, if you're getting that many shorts that you have to spend hours scratching copper away with a point, I think you need to work out what's going wrong with your etching method, rather than trying to fix it afterwards.

HTH,
Tom

[Yazoo]

The problem was partly that I used the hot iron transfer method. I always find the transfer expands a bit and the gaps between the copper contract. The transfer was good but prone to solder bridges because of this. Also my current batch of solder is a bit "clumpy".

This problem doesn't occur as often when I use the photographic transfer method.

[balkanizeyou]

you can try lowering the temperature of the iron a bit if it causes the toner to smear. It's also easier to get rid of bridges before the etching (by scratching the toner with a needle), than afterwards by scratching the copper