1st Try PNP Blue...too hot?

[mydementia]

Hi guys.
I've been wanting to try PnP Blue for a while now and finally got everything together and here's what happened:


I've read a lot of posts on using this magic film here and thought I followed the majority of the advice:
1) Clean Copper
2) Sit iron on copper for 30 seconds (I put a piece of paper between the iron and the copper)
3) Iron for 5 minutes - mix of sitting and moving around (Iron on the first steam setting - no steam of course)
4) Quench in cold water
5) Peel off PnP and get ready to etch...

After about two minutes of ironing, the traces looked all melted together... any definitive word on using this stuff?

Thanks in advance.
Mike

[markm]

Despite what alot of folks suggest, I never pre-heat the PCB blank.
I honestly don't feel it is neccessary for a good transfer.
It looks to me as though there was a tad too much heat.
What about pressure? Did you push down on the iron at all?

[Seljer]

Its worked great for me. I just photocopied the artwork to the PnP sheet. Then just cleaned up the copper, placed the PnP onto it and went on with the iron. I used about the "nylon" setting on it, and keep ironing it for about 4 or 5 minutes, alternating between just pushing down and moving around. Have gotten excellent transfers with the stuff.

What did you print on the PnP with? I kind of suspect the ink (well, toner) for it running about like that.

[$uperpuma]

yeah you have to make sure the pnp sheet doesn't move side to side at all as well... that can cause that... easy fix, acetone that transfer off and try again....
make sure the pnp DOES NOT MOVE.

[brett]

Hi.
I pre-heat only enough to remove any residual moisture from the blank.  To do that, I iron a part of the ironing board, then put the blank in that warm spot while I organise everything else.

Set the iron to the very lowest part of the steam setting, or "wool".

Place a piece of plain white paper over the PnP, and iron that.

When ironing, leave it in place for a minute or so.  Any back-and-forth movement at the start tends to smear the results.

cheers

[Pushtone]

I don't pre heat the copper either. Makes it to hard to place the transfer as it sticks to hot copper right off the bat.

It looks like the right amount of heat but for to long. Did the transparency part of the PnP bubble and disform?
Thats too much heat. If your just having bleed it might be for too long.

I have gotten that effect too where the traces bleed into each other.
I use the "Cotton" setting on my iron if that's any help.

The other thing that helped me with the bleed issue is to use a piece of paper towle
between the iron and the transfer but I see your already doing that.

It's OK to quench in water and peel up an edge to see the progress.

At least it's easy to remove and try again.
Go ask your wife/GF for some nail polish remover
Your SO close!

[mydementia]

I think I got it now...


Copier at work put ink down better and I'm ironing for <2 minutes on the 'Wool' setting - no glopping.  I even got 2-point text to etch on my AMZ Mosfet Booster + M2N boards (bottom two).  The Lovetone Brown Source in the upper right got a little over-etched...lot of copper...  but I'm VERY happy with my board 'factory' now.  I'm using a dremel drill press (cheap knockoff on clearance at Harbor Freight) with my dremel and 1/32" bits I bought off of ebay.  Nothing like having the right tools to do the job!

Thanks for all your help and input.  I just love building on a PCB - especially one I layed out, etched, and drilled!
Mike

[Mark Hammer]

A word of advice: write down on the boards what they are for!

When it is so easy to make boards, and such a nuisance to clean up, the tendency is to produce a whole whack of them at once to make optimal use of the PnP.  Some PCB patterns include the name and date of the circuit, but a great many don't.  You can easily find yourself like I was last night, going through a bin of partly stuffed boards, scratching my head and going "Now what the heck was THAT thing?".

The counterpart to this, of course, is that you may find yourself printing off a whole whack of patterns on a sheet or two of PnP and wanting to save them for an etch at a later point.  Make damn sure you label THOSE too.

On the subject of using PnP, I find that one of the questions that pops up here as often as those pesky weeds on my lawn is "How do I tell when it's done?".  The toner lays down a layer on top of the PnP which is juuuuuuuust thick enough that you could probably feel it as slight bumps if you closed your eyes and ran the tips of your fingers over it.  Not quite as thick as the glossy embossed letters you find on wedding invitations and such, but in that direction.  When the PnP is flipped over and placed on the copper board, you have the toner in direct contact with the board and the blue-only areas essentially "suspended" above the board, by the thickness of the toner layer.  As heat is applied, the acetate backing sheet starts to soften and sag.  Not quite melted cheese hanging over the edge of the sandwich, but in that direction.  As it starts to soften and sag, the outline of the toner pattern starts to become visible because at those points the toner layer holds the acetate backing up.  When you can see the entire PCB pattern in shiny relief, that means the entire transfer has been heated up enough that the areas around ALL of the toner have reached the critical temperature for fusing/bonding.  If you see an area that has made that transformation, you don't need to iron it any more.  In fact more ironing will generate the "splat" you showed in the first image.

There, now you know.

[mydementia]

Thanks for the insight Mark.
If I took individual shots, you'd see that all my boards are labeled.  I bring the PCB .bmp's into a photo/print program (got it at Costco - can't remember what it is) and add text (reversed, of course) to every transfer lacking one.  This is a lesson I relearn every time I dig through my 'bag of misfit circuits' - many perf projects look the same!  Once I get a couple weeks from the build, I have no idea what it was!  I label everything I do now - even my little M2N switching circuits...
Mike

[mydementia]

Last entry on this thread...I've learned a lot.

Here's a shot of the difference between using a snazzy new photocopier at Minuteman Press vs. the older one at work... In this case, older is better!
My Millennium 2N boards:


I also have the process down:
1) Cut board to size
2) Scrub with Comet using thumb - dry w/paper towel
3) Put iron on 'Wool' setting
4) Place PNP on board, set iron on top holding in place (so the PNP doesn't slide around)
5) When the 'auto shutoff' warning light blinks (~45 seconds) lift iron, rotate board 90 degrees, put iron back on
6) Repeat for a total of 3 minutes (4 rotations)
7) Quench in water - peel off PNP making sure traces transferred...if not - repeat iron procss two times
8> Fill in traces as required - very minimal now...
9) Proceed to etching and drilling

That's it.  Here's what I did this morning...now I'm out of copper...time to start etching (and I thought I was going to stop building for a while!!)


Thanks again for all the help you provided on getting this going.  I like building on boards SO much better than perf and vero...cuts down on the troubleshooting a LOT!! 

Mike

[markm]

Nice job.
I agree that this is sooo much better than perf for me as well.
I'd rather spend my time using the completed build than debugging it!