I also received a micro etching kit and i agree with Phillip Humphrey 101%. "Of all the years RU-vid has been on line your video seems to be the only instructional videos out there." Thank you for the video!!! You Rock!!
This is a great starter video! I got my start from these instructions. I have since perfected a system which now I make Hellraiser panels for various people, and now making 6 inch panels for framing or display bases. Hopefully soon I'll be making 12" Hellraiser panels 😃 If you use thicker plexiglass (i use 1/4 inch because I process 6x9 inch panels) you'll have to expose to UV for longer. Even if it's not special UV blocking acrylic, it still absorbs some. With no plexiglass, I can expose the photoresist about 2 1/2 minutes per side. With 1/4 inch plexiglass it's up to 10-13 minutes per side. I too should make a video, though this one is hard to beat.
Nice tutorial. To get all the copper out of your used solution, simply add an iron or steel item to your spent acid, and the copper will drop out or "cement out" of the solution as crystals. All you'll be left with is ferric chloride. After doing this, you can continue re-using your acid solution and refreshing the acid when it gets too weak. Pumping air through an aquarium bubbler will also introduce oxygen into the acid, making it last longer, without making it as diluted, as it is when the hydrogen peroxide is added. An added side effect , the air bubbles keeps your solution agitated.
Just received the metal photo-etching kit from Micro-Mark,even comes with the laminator. Of all the years RU-vid has been on line your video seems to be the only instructional videos out there. Hope to see more of your work. Do you have a favavorite
Excellent! Thanks in particular for demonstrating the use of plexiglass to hold the double-sided artwork in register, also how to make full etch and half-etch on the same piece. It seems the chemistry you used should be available in the UK, am I correct in understanding that the UK would know Muriatic Acid better as Hydrochloric Acid HCl? It would be very useful if you could clarify on the original concentrations of the acids used in your 2:1 mix because the H2O2 is sold in the UK in 3%, 6%, 11% and 12% solutions - I take it a different concentration would require a change in the mix ratio?
+Ian Collett You're welcome. Yes, HCL is the same thing. The H2O2 I use is 3% because of its stability. You can use the same ratio with any of the other H2O2 concentrations, and the etching process will go quicker. That being said - the reaction may be a violent one causing the solution to bubble out of control, and cause more chlorine gas fumes than you will know what to do with. Also keep in mind that different metals will react differently to this process - aluminum will have a more aggressive reaction to 3% than will brass or copper. Test things in small scale before going big. One more thing - the process creates heat - the higher H2O2 concentration - the more heat produced. Your resist may not be able to handle huge amounts of heat and might bubble, causing imperfections in your design. Make sure your etching tray will be able to handle high temperatures if you're going to try higher concentrations of H2O2.
Excellent tutorial. Any tips on how/when to remove the protective film on the side of photoresist opposite the brass? When I attempt to remove prior to the laminate, this difficult to avoid peeling the photoresist off of the metal, and when I try after laminating oh, occasionally it pulls small pieces of photoresist with it. Thanks in advance.
Thanks for getting back to us. Does the reverse acertate print go only on one side as trying to match up each side would be difficult. I'm attempting a box for myself and now have all the materials. Completley new to all this. Thanks for any help.
I use eagle cadsoft for my pcb, export it to image then to ms paint for negative but the output page is not to scale as the original which is important to electronic parts placement.. how do you fix that in ms paint?thank you
I noticed that you held the metal sheet above the etching solution and you sloshed it over...does that speed up the etching process instead of submerging the sheet??
The short answer is yes. Slosh for 30 seconds to a minute, use gloves and take the piece out of the solution, wait for the bubbles to pop, turn piece over and submerge. Repeat until piece is fully etched.
I may have missed it (will re watch several times) but I did not catch how to accurately register the stencil on both sides of the metal. Especially with finely detailed art accuracy is critical (and elusive!). Thanks!
The cheapest way to register the stencil correctly is using a folding magnifying glass. You can also use magnifying headgear, or if you're able to spend some money, a microscope.
That makes no sense. If I cannot see through the metal to know if Side A is registering with Side B in both X and Y directions, then how is seeing the opaque metal closer going to help me?
Two sided stencils (photo resist) are aligned before the metal is there. The easiest way is using plexiglass and nails as shown in the first technique; adhere each of your photomasks to separate sheets of plexiglass, then put them together and align them, clamp and insert the alignment pins (heated nails). The nails will keep everything aligned when you separate them to put in your metal with the photo resist adhered to it. The other option is just to align your photo masks after printing and then tape them together on three sides in the margins to make an envelope that your metal+photo resist can be inserted into, but you will still need to use a piece of glass on top to make sure that your mask is tight against the metal when you expose it to the UV.
Thank you I have benefited much from video But I have a question I hope to answer about what is the concentration of hydrogen peroxide acid used in this experiment Is 3% or more
Derek Neal It does. The brass that's used on the video is .005 in thickness. Most stainless sheets are .012 or thicker. Be aware that it's going to take some time to etch fully through - at least 20 minutes. Keep the solution moving, and flip the piece every minute or so.
Sir i want to asked some question, i apply H2O2 hidrogen peroxide 100 ml along with HCl (muriatic acid) with yellow colour 50 ml . I mixed it 2:1 but when i put my brass sheet 15cm x 17 cm the liquid turn to green and start to boil and the white smoke appear so thick, but my 0.3 mm brass sheet cant cut it trough, nothing happened, and 10 minute later the photo resist start to peel from the brass plate, did i do something wrong? Maybe i need more volume for the liquid?
+Farid Rachmanyah boiling and smoke is a good indicator that your H2O2 is a high concentration. I use 3%, or 6% depending on what I'm etching. Along with bubbling out of control, it's also producing a massive amount of heat at that concentration. The heat is peeling off your resist. Use a 3% or 6% H2O2 solution, and use 300ml with 150ml acid. I don't think you have enough acid to etch through.
Thank you for your interest I thought I was wrong because I used large copper thickness of about 0.05 cm is approximately equal to 0.02 inches But my question is, Is there a method of etching copper metal thickness of 0.02 inches??? The final question following concentrations were used Notify me that was incorrect hydrogen peroxide 3% 2 cup muriatic acid 31% 1 cup Thanks again Note: Please excuse the language on some of the mistakes I do not speak English so I use Google for translation :)
Good video. I started working with Peroxide/Muriatic etchant a couple-few years ago to do PCBs, I like it a lot better than Ferric Chloride, that's for sure. I've seen that Micro-Mark photo-etching kit, totally overpriced. Very nice though. But he's right, you can get all the stuff cheaper elsewhere. Something else to consider depending on the type of artwork you do; vector the artwork and make the film positive out of Rubylith on a CraftRobo or something.
Hydrogen peroxide to acid ratio is 2:1. If you use 10 ounces of peroxide, use 5 ounces of acid. The 3% is for stripping with sodium hydroxide. To answer your other question (from your email) as best I can, I don't know what it is you're trying to accomplish. .05 inch metal is thick in the etching world. I use .005 in thickness in my demo, and you can see from the clock that it takes some time to etch completely through.
Thank you for your compliment. MIcro-Mark is wildly overpriced. Home Depot, Ebay, and ACE Hardware will get you everything you need for less than half of Micro-Mark. They do offer everything in 1 stop which is a nice thing. That being said I hope this vid helps and you make some cool stuff. I mostly make Hellraiser things and my favorite that I've made is a clear box that lights up. It's on my website under the heading The Box. Website is my user name, just don't spell dot :)
Won't argue that it is overpriced, but it's an "all in one" home etching supply kit. I didn't have to source anything other than black lights and sheet metal. I'll gladly pay extra for the convenience of not hunting around for supplies when I'm not sure what I'm doing. That said... Fantastic tutorial! I watched it a few times prior to using my MM etching kit, and it really helped give confidence in the process that I didn't get from the written instructions. Thanks for taking the time to share your experience with us. The tip about using Muriatic Acid and Hydrogen Peroxide is great too...
I have not used that program before so I don't have a good answer on how it scales your design. I did a Google search and that's been a problem for several years, You might have some luck in their support forums.
Good video, but you should have narrated it yourself instead of having Siri do it. ("mynoot" instead of "minnit"...) Curious why you did not mention spray-on photoresist film. I've found it very easy to use for printed circuit boards - spray it on, wait for it to dry, pray that no dust specs land on it. I felt the pace of video was a bit rushed, especially when being distracted by the synthesized voice. Might have been better to break it up into a 3-part series and go a little slower. You don't cover dual masks or partial etching very well at all except by describing the required artwork. An etching example of that would have been helpful.
Glad you liked the video. The audio was Natural Reader. I'm not a good speaker, and it would've been a lot longer had I talked through it. I've never used spray on resist, so I don't know much about it. If you made a video on it, I would be glad to watch it and learn. It was a conscious decision to not go deeper into other aspects of the process. I could do a 45 minute video of each part of the process and still not cover everything. Thanks for watching, and looking forward to your video.
If I do make one it probably won't have as many witty remarks as yours. (I don't mean that in a negative way - your narration is witty and entertaining. All I mean is I'm apparently not as witty as you. Perhaps part of it was the delivery - beware female androids telling jokes!) At the moment I'm busy preparing a multi-media model for 3D printing and giving serious thought to making a series of videos documenting the build, which will involve SMD LED and fiber optic lighting.....and custom photo-etched parts - so it's very possible I'll have a segment on using spray-on photoresist and discuss more about front/back masks. I do like your chemical choices instead of ferric chloride and will be sure to give your video a mention.
I tried to watch this... but it was very irritating video due to the audio. Sorry, but i wouldn't watch more than 15 seconds of this although i tried hard to resist.
I get that you and others don't like the robot voice, but it's much better than my own voice. You can always turn on captions, and turn down the volume.
I tried to bare to watch this regardless of that horrible TTS-voice, but I just had to stop watching right after I saw that laughable use of Paint. Seriously, those two things make this video look like a joke.
