Making PCBs the RepRap way! 

This was neat to watch and very much reminded me of my electronics class in high school! We didn't use a pen, we applied traces via a sticky-backed material. Plus, our solution had an aquarium heater to keep it warm, heh.

Bit late but hey, in the years when i wasn't alive (before 2000), people often used "iron" method of doing this. Basically, they had printed layout on paper with laser printer, then they put paper onto the copper, heated everything and the ink would melt, stick onto copper and bake onto it. Afterwards, they just etched it. I tried this method many times when i was younger and it worked well. But later in school, we had to use a drawing method, which i got really used to, and here are some tricks: - About the pen. You can actually buy specialised pens for PCBs, they aren't that expensive (i got mine with 0,2mm tip for like 2€), they work the best. Also i've heard the sharpies works good. - Slow that thing down. While its drawing, it actually leaves a trace of LIQUID behind, and if its too fast, it draws that liquid with the tip, leaving indent in the liquid in the middle (the marks at the last PCB). When slow enough, the liquid will dry before that could happen, and it will be more thick (in Z axis..) thus more etcher-resistant, also it won't leave any marks. - You can actually repair some traces/spots that has been broken whiel drawing by using very fine brush and acetone and/or sharpie again. Just underlight that PCB and you'll nicely see, where there's less ink, and just add some more. BUT, dab it, not draw. By dabbing, a literal drop of ink will disperse onto the surface, and there is a big chance of scratching off existing ink while drawing. So, dab. - After everything is done and you like what is drawn, before etching, put the PCB in oven or heat it with a heatgun a bit. The ink will bake onto the copper and will resist etcher a lot more. - Also i don't know what etching solution you used, but use ferric chloride. It isn't as aggresive to the ink as others and does a bit better job imo.

Tom, you brilliant man, I've worked in labs with heated agitator baths for years and I have never once thought to use my 3d printer for this purpose. My life has changed.

3:34 for a split second i thought Tom was pouring superglue on the bearings hahah

3:11 ahhh... the good old TOT method. I never got it to work

Someone's been watching This Old Tony.

I saw a film made by Tektronix in the 1960s, showing how they made their PCBs at the time. They used a photosensitive emulsion rather than plotting directly onto the copper, but they also did something else that may be helpful. Because they were making double-sided boards with plated through-holes, they first drilled all of the holes that needed plating, the holes had to be drilled before etching the copper. They also used plated through holes, which means that they couldn't just etch the copper directly, since that would etch away the plating they just put in the holes. What they did was us a negative resist, that is, it covered the areas they wanted to remove, rather than the areas they wanted to keep copper on. Then they used a plating solution that very quickly plates a thin coating of tin on all exposed copper. Then they used an etchant that removes copper but not tin. I think they were using ferric chloride; I don't know how it would work with the copper chloride Thomas is using here (i.e., the DIY etchant made using hydrchloric acid and hydrogen peroxide). In their case, the big advantage of this negative process was that the plated holes weren't affected by the etchant, but in the case of using resist ink as an etch resist, the advantage would be that the ink doesn't have to stand up to long exposure to the etchant. As an added benefit, after you etch, the copper is already tin plated, which is a much better surface to solder to than is copper, and doesn't corrode as easily.

when I was young I used the Edding permanent marker and it worked really well also the staedler works well but you should check always the traces before put the PCB on the solution. I remember how I had to re-do the layout tons of times with my marker and ruler. If complicated, when I ended that project my teacher told me that I could use a laser printer, and an iron to get the same result, but always checking the traces.

You can drill some registration holes to align the top and bottom layers for a proper dual layer construction.

The part made to hold the pen seems like it's a little bit over-engineered. Maybe one could design something with a little springy bit of PLA in one part. I thought of this after watching the Veritasium video on compliant mechanisms

Standard Sharpie permanent markers are typically used for masking PCBs. They're inexpensive, have lots of tip types, and the ink holds during etching.

All those soldering points should have etched hole in the middle of it. That small cavity on the copper helps to hold your drill bit at the center until the drill binds to the board. Hand-drilling these boards is really easy when the starting dents are already there. It also helps to see where ever you should make the holes.

I've been using laser diode to burn away the paint from spray painted copper clad boards, then etching as in the video. Super fine resolution and less problems with coverage. I believe there's a thread on German reprap forums about this method.

I would love to see a variation where you attach a laser pointer to the 3D printer and use it to expose a photo etch PCB. The laser could be turned on and off using the fan control. Use your same program for generating the G-code and search and replace the Z changes with fan control commands.

I love the 3dp as pcb agitator :)

Years ago, I used to draw the PCB graphics by hand with nail polish before any pens, home cnc's etc. were even conceived. Worked like a charm, do the results were only as good as your artistic skills.

Awesome video. Love seeing people use modern technology such as 3D printers and utilizing them to make homebrew custom PCBs. This is what I call ingenuitive innovational progress! I'd like to take these concepts a step farther and see what we can come up with where graphene is the printable substance...

This video is not sponsored by jlcbcp

Wondering about printing plastic onto the copper then acid etching

Great video! What about milling a stencil from a acrilyc or some plastic and just draw by hand the pcb traces,would it produce a better result?

Interesting topic, I always wondered how well this method performes. After evething I´ve seen an tried, toner transfer seems to work best.

I always just use plastic as a photoresist, some of the flexible filaments work quite nicely (dunno if it's polypropylene or TP urethane). By the way, fun fact: if you're drawing a pcb layout by hand, you can use a normal sharpie :)

Really cool vid, I used this process by hand many years ago at school. Never occurred to me to try it in a 3D printer, I'd assume some type of plastic filament would do the trick. I'm curious as to whether a dual hotend model with conductive and non conductive filament could print a PCB, including the component leg holes. The conductive filaments work well with dumb circuits, like printing Nav light circuits into printed aircraft wings, but with its limited conductivity, would it work with semiconductor IC chips?

I tried doing a pen etch too once. I used the peroxide HCL mix. I had the same issue where I had etching between the pen lines.

Hi ; as a newcomer on pcb making , I wonder if a 5w laser can be mounted in place of the pencil and by painting the whole surface of the copper with the resist , and then exposing the traces that going to be etched out by burning the resist with the laser, maybe will be more accurate that way

You do a good job on creating some original maker-oriented content that shows us that just tinkering around is often what teaches us the most. The "Play more work less" method :-)

I've been trying to find info on using the 3dp as an "heated agitator"... What code is used? I can't find anything to explain how to continuously move the y-axis back and forth... Or do you just copy-paste many lines of y-movement?

You can use photo-etch boards, where you design your circuit, print it out onto acetate, & then lay the acetate design onto the board & burn the circuit onto the board then etch it with the acid.

Could you share your agitation file ! I use the laser printer method myself and would love to use your idea of using the printer for a heat source and agitator 👍

The Fabercaster might work better with "ferric chloride " ? The method presented by Heliox, is quite nice and in the RepRap way of re-using existing systems/component (and might be easier to pull off).

wow, at some point i realized tom is speaking sooo quickly i actually had to check if i have the speed at 100% :D but great! i love the new format and that way also much more content fits in the video. super thumbs up!

When you printed the circuit,was the heated bed turned on? I wonder if heating the bed to accelerate the ink drying process may help? Or maybe using a heated bed, a thinner ink (maybe a bit o alcohool or acetone in the pen tank) and several passes?

Back in the late 90's, when I was hand-etching PCBs, I used a Staedtler *overhead projector* (fine tip) marker, and it worked pretty well.

so if you tinned the circuit traces would it fill in the areas missed by the pen?

Could you use some kind of filament to cover the copper and then dissolve it off somehow?

So many brilliant tricks. The spring mechanism to keep the pen contacting the PCB, using the bed as an agitator. Some serious out-of-the-box thinking. Thanks for sharing.

Back in the days I was getting pretty decent results with a negative laser print on plastic film and hot transfer on copper. Laser toner was super resistant to all etching solutions I tried.

I think much cleaner method is using etch resistant paint and 2.5-5W laser to burn out pain and than etch.. plenty of videos on RU-vid and laser is much more precise than pen can and can be easyli attached to 3dprinter and enhance G code as well.. and it's just much cooler to use laser than pen :)

You've always got the problem of making a wet solvent line on or next to a solvent dissoluble deposited line, ie, it removes it.

What etching solution is that? Usually Ferrous-Chloride is used, because its very fast and can be recycled

Laser exposure of light sensitive coated pcb might be the best solution when it comes to accuracy, I guess. Perhaps you try that as well?

How about using that pen that provides low resolution to just blot out the whole board (or just do a rough pass), and then swap the pen with some scrapper to remove the excess ink or touch up wherever the pen is expected to not have enough resolution?

Try use blue laser diode for make pcb (1-3W)

I use ender 3 with a laser driven off the fan ttl output. Etch pcb spray painted black. Takes longer but i can use .4mm traces and double sided

What about using something such as filament with a small nozzle to mask boards? It would only take 1 or 2 passes at most, as ink does not work too well as resist for etching.

Ordered some CCL anti etching pens from ebay (also available from ali). Working well, but I do have some issues with larger areas. Still testing though.

Much better to laser jet print pcb artwork onto cheap photo paper then iron on to clad board never fails good results with good high resolution

Would a dremel be fast enough to get clean holes? You could print a drill press for that.

Toner transfer works well with ferric chloride. It also seems that an Edding works good with ferric chloride, but I didn't really try that. And you can export the PCB in a way so you have circles instead of solid dots as Pads, so you know where to drill.

I really liked using the 3d printer to heat and slosh the fluid, Very good idea. will you cover any other ways like painting the PCB and then using a laser to burn it away or toner transfer sheets or is this going beyond the 3d printing area you so expertly cover ? I brought a cheap XY vice that can be mounted to a pillar drill and tried that to drill the holes, it took a bit of practice, but it worked well enough to make a few boards.

i had same issue doing that by hand easy fix been do few layers of pen ink leting both drawings dry for few hours between adding layers of pen. There are hand drills that are of small enough size to drill in this type of pcb by hand. Wondering if you left small layer of pla on that plate for eching to protect copper. ( like 0.5 mm thick layer of pla to cover plate.

I suggest when plotting to heat up the bed to aid in the ink drying. Also, I've had pretty good success with sharpies doing touch up on the laser printer/iron process. Not sure how hard it is to get a sharpie where you are.

Will this work with a cheap-old 1980's plotter?

Would there happen to be a tutorial showing how to do the things you said to do in flatcam? By the way, I love your videos Thomas.

i toner transfer PCB's for prototyping quite often of course that's a much different process then using a CNC but it works out really good

12:00 I wonder if a drying fan would help with the ink being wiped away of the second pass

Could you use a weight instead of a spring to hold the pen down? It would give a constant force regardless of the height of the printer head.

I would like to try marking out blue and a scribe in a similar isolation routing setup, I've got the blue and the scribe but no cnc /3D printer. I do have some stepper motors so it's not totally out of the question..

Would you be able to use PLA as an etch resist? First layer would be critical but it might work.

Interesting thought... Have you tried 3D printing complex circuits by layering conductive and non-conductive filaments?

what is that etchent solution you're using?? im used to useing feric chloride!

I like the direction you're going explaining the origins of the RepRap project and its focus on replicatable machines.

Hmm have you tried using a wavelength laser that will only burn where the ink is drawn? You could use the ink to prevent scorching on edges with a laser that normally happens with laser etching.

I have been using a cold toner transfer method for making boards for several years and have very good results. Then use mt cnc engraver to drill the boards

Is there acid resistend fillament, so you could directly 3d print on the copper instead of using a marker?

Great. I've been toying with this idea on my printer also for tiny SMD projects.

I like the direction youre going with your chanel not only doing 3D printing stuff

Would it be possible to have a syringe with a needle in place of the pen, and have the ink be gravity fed but held in place as a droplet on the tip of the needle by the surface tension of the ink while the needle tip is not too close to the board?

the process my father used, was printing out the circuit on a laser printer (with Toner!) and ironing it onto copper, to transfer the print, throwing it in an etching solution and then removing the toner,. Took him a while to get right, but he was making them regularly to build headphone amps

Thomas, could you print filament directly onto copper to shield it from the etching solution? If it doesn't stick, could you use an intermediary such as a layer of glue? Perhaps this way the resolution could be much higher, though you'd probably need to tidy up some stringing before the etching.

Hi Tom. It is easy to make a mount for a small drill that you could use to drill the pcb. Sure a printer tends to lack the rigidity to mill but you can drill only easily

I have a simple question - did you try to use a 3d print filament instead of a marker to draw paths?

I always wondered why can't we print the design directly in the board. Will it work for PLA or PETG or anything else ?

Very interesting. Would not it be better with a pen like a rapidograph (between 0.1 mm and 0.2 mm in diameter)? Or why not a laser?

Is there any way to use an sla printer to do this? Like using the photosensitive layer with the lcd light pattern

how did you setup the bed to agitate like that?

I tired this idea a while ago and had many of the same issues that you had. The biggest issue was getting enough resist ink laid down, and 2 passes would sometimes just rub off the layer below. The best solution turned out to be to just print with plastic and a 0.2mm nozzle. Glass filled PLA worked well for me because it didn't shrink and peel up. The etching turned out really well, but drilling was a pain. The answer to that was to print a jig that holds the PCB on the bed and raises it up, and make a holder for a Dremel that is used to drill out the holes with the printer and g-code. The results were pretty satisfactory, but ultimately I concluded this was really only good for a one-off board. PCB fabs are just so inexpensive today that fabbing my own just isn't worth the time it takes.

What about trying UV etching with one of those new cheap 3D resin printers (LCD)

I use the toner transfer method, tight traces & gaps are still an issue but it's relatively accurate. Essentially print the design onto (thin) glossy photo paper with a toner printer, transfer the toner onto the blank PCB with a hot iron, soak the board & remove the photo paper while leaving the toner adhered to the copper then drop it in the etching solution. Its a convenient & low tech way to get it done pretty quickly, once you navigate past the pitfalls the boards can be quite consistent. Most failures are due to the ironing bit not going well... Holes are still a pain to drill, I tap them all first then go at it with the micro drill bits. A pillar drill of some sort would be useful!

Do you try rotring rapidograph ? When i was young i used them to correct by hand track who was badly insulated. Itinéraire worked perfectly.

This is what I'm looking for. However, you save me time and trial for thing that may go wrong. Your work is highly appreciated!

I tried once to heat a recipient with etching solution (ferric chloride), which worked well. The problem is that later I found some odd corrosion on the tool head. Maybe I should get the tool head higher. But maybe if I going to repeat this, I will build a heat bead with a mosfet and an arduino. Which will have the advantage that if I knock it over, it won't be over the 3D printer.

Halfway between both, if i am going to make a pcb (which i very rarely do when i can have a two layer made so quick and cheap) i spray paint the pcb and then throw it under the laser and have it cut the negatives for the traces exactly as you have. I use a co2 but i think it would work just fine with a diode laser on a 3d printer. There are some inherent hazards related to that radiation which you'll have to decide how you manage but it has been the fastest and easiest method of diying it i have found. Outstanding video, your content gives me tons of motivation, thank you.

Hello, what etching solution did you use? I etched my PCB in Iron chloride ( FeCl3 ) and I never had issues like this. Etching in iron chloride take more time, 1hour at room temperature, 30 minutes at 40 deg. C but slower etching process gives you better control. also it is good idea to pour etching solution into container and then carefully put pcb on surface of acid or print some plastic stands for PCB. when PCB is on top with copper side down, dissolved copper is going down to bottom of container and not stay on PCB.

What does anybody think about polyzinc ABS filament for 3d printing? Quicker melting/drying possibly.

I'm wondering what if we print on pcb with ABS or PLA instead of printing with marker. ABS would resist the acid as good as marker does. Did someone try?

Just printing a transparency and exposing a photo resist is still quite easy, and gives great results.

Wonder how an automotive touch up pen would work?....I don't remember if they're fine enough but the paint should stick and be resistant to the etch solution....

I wonder how PLA would work as etch resist. Just print a very thin layer on to the pcb.

You should explore if you could use the same process (hot end mounted pen) for something like calligraphy (think writing out wedding invitations or signing your name on a thank you card). It would be great to see the process you find from scanning a signature to creating an STL file to creating the GCODE etc. Cool video!

Your process will work fine. I dunno what you're using as etchant but I've used those permanent markers to correct my pcb made with toner transfer and they work well with ferric chloride. Try using that as the etchant and i think your method will work great

I like the idea of this. What about adding a dremel head instead of a pen. I have an old 3d printer that is not work which I might try this on

3:10 This old Tom... you shenanigan-fu is strong!

Dremal offers a small drill press and small bits that would work great for this application I have one. Use it drill starter holes in finer Scroll saw work

Please share how you set heated bed moving forward & backward continuously.. it will help me while pcb designing.

In school we used a tiny drill mounted to a rail and drilled the holes with that. Cheap and it worked perfect

Fill UV glue into the pen and solid it after printing?

solder resist. brilliant idea. so i can mill the traces and draw the solder resist using the same cnc. thanks

Hi! I can see you have problems with the etching sollution when using pens. Only pen that I find that worked was the Edding brand. Staedtler pens were too weak against HCl and H2O2 solution. You could use Ferric Chloride or Sodium persulfate, with latter I did achieve good results, but the "resist" paint has to be good.

How do you know when your hot end is shot?