DIY Double-sided Board

[nickbungus]

Hi guys

I've been building my own pedals for a little over a year now and for being a total novice I've had a lot of success (a few fails too!).

Anyway, for one of my own layouts that I was never happy with, especially the size of the board, I've created a new layout.  This time with 2 sides of copper trace. 

I'm now going to etch my layout on some double sided copper clad board.  I've read a few articles and watched a few Youtube videos on how to do it.

Really, all I wanted was a bit of advice or any tips and hints/ potential pitfalls etc. for producing the board as well as soldering.

Thanks

[J0K3RX]

Make sure the holes line up... 

[KazooMan]

Yep, lining up the holes is critical.  For the only two sided board I ever etched I ironed on the toner transfer on one side and drilled a couple of holes and then used those holes to align the second transfer.  You do need to be careful not to damage the first side while you are making the second transfer. 

[nickbungus]

Yes,  that's the method in going for, lining up drilled holes.  Some maverick on YouTube just cut the board to size and then ironed.

It also occurred to me that I would have to solder everything both sides.  Obvs, but I just hadn't given it enought thought

[karbomusic]

You can align them without doing one side then drilling. First off print the top/bottom layouts so they can be folded by printing a fold line dead center between the two layouts. You can also make the transfer slightly larger and include registration marks on the fold over. And you can also cut the PCB a tad larger and drill holes on the four corners to create a perfect registration that way too. This was done via fold over method...

[stringsthings]

You don't have to solder everything on both sides.  Just where you have the top and bottom intersect.  Since you're doing your own layout, you can
make these "via"s yourself.  These do need to be soldered on both sides to join the traces on the top and bottom.  You may want to make your vias
separate from your component leads.  ( This helps a lot when you have vias on IC traces )

[greaser_au]

When I was still at high school, over 30 years ago!- I used to make PCBs at home. Patterns designed on paper, taped to the copper  and holes poked as references for tracing the pattern. The resist pattern was manually applied to the copper  using adhesive layout tapes (The old Tandy-RadioShack PCB kits included strips of various width linear tracks, pads of a few diameters,  rows of DIL IC pads),  and a resist pen or a permanent texta (~= sharpie).

I used to DIY DS boards-  one side at a time. I applied PVC electrical tape on the non-etch side.  and laid out the etch side pattern. When I had etched that side,  I'd drill a few holes for alignment (registration), sight it against a light through the topside  pattern, trace & lay out the unetched side , pvc tape the etched side and etch again. As for the vias. I'd solder the components on both sides,  and where necessary add a few top-to-bottom links). The first thing I made like this was a double effect bypass switch, with a 4013 and a couple of 4066's- pretty easy, one just had to be patient and meticulous.   As R.G. saide in another thread like this,  the hardest bit was accuracy in the alignment of the top & the bottom patterns. 

I haven;t done this in a loooooong time, but if I was doing it now in single quantities with toner transfer or photo resist, I'd still very likely use the 'drill a few holes' method.

david

[duck_arse]

if you can arrainge your board layout such that the only places top and bottom tracks need to meet are in large areas of copper, your overall alignment becomes less critical.