Electrolysis Etching PCB's Complete Tutorial

[MarcoMike]

+1

this was what I was asking myself from the start.

About the chemical aspects: it is a chemical reaction in both cases. in the FeCl₃ case it is a chemical redox process, in the other one it is an electrochemical one.

Copper is green in solution, not blue, when chlorine is present. all metals form complexes in water. when the concentration is low water is predominant and copper forms the Cu xH₂O complex, blue. if the conc of chlorine is high (salty water) the equilibrium is shifted to the Cu xCl complex, which is green.

the copper-like slurry is likely to be copper. as the Cu concentration gets higher it is more willing to be reduced at the catode, plating it. if the process is fast the plated layer would not be coherent on the catode and will precipitate as a red/dark solid

[Zben3129]

I etched a basic booster board, and I was thinking the same thing would occur with the electricity not being able to get to the traces isolated, but it did! I don't have an explanation for why...

I put together the board and it worked perfectly.

Maybe I just got lucky, but for a 15 component board it worked

[slacker]

In that case I might have to try it.

I guess what happens is the etching process starts on the surface of the copper and then eats downwards through it. In that case assuming the copper is a uniformish thickness until all the copper has been eaten through completely your always going to some electrical connection to all parts of the copper.

[MarcoMike]

[PerroGrande]

There is a pictoral guide on instructables.com:

http://www.instructables.com/id/The-Saltwater-etch-process/

[Zben3129]

Ooooooooohhhhhh nice now i don't have to take pictures 

Thank ya!

[PerroGrande]

One thing I noticed in that tutorial is that he removes a very small amount of material -- working with nearly the entire board masked.  This would tend to eliminate the problems with the electrode eating itself in the etching process.

[jambers]

Tried the electric-etching method the other day.

Burned my wifi-transformator (it was the only one in the house with a good voltage an ampèrage). 
My pcb is halfly etched. 
Lost a krokodil-clip (was totaly eaten away). 

I think I'll stick with the method of FeCl or other etchant.

[jrem]

re: the bridge thing, don't forget that you have conductor under the resist, so it will etch.   I would imagine though that if the copper isn't the same thickness or if it etches unevenly then you could have problems.  Plus you should have copper under the electrode when you remove it.

Hmm, a car battery charger should do the trick.  And sorry for not being green, but I'll just throw all the chemistry down the drain. 

Flush twice.