[Milsurplus] PCB - masking question. heat mailable inkjet ink ?

[Mark J. Blair]

On Jan 24, 2013, at 21:32 , John Hutchins <jphutch60bj at gmail.com> wrote:
> Printed the image let it dry.  Whipped out the iron, turned it up to the highest setting in hopes of transferring the ink from the glossy photo paper on to a tinned copper waffle board- with no success ( -! whaaaaah. I did a little research on the web about this process, but not enough understanding to the ironed on pattern stick.  Yes granted I used an Ink jet,  So it may be off to FEDX-Kinkos to use their a laser jet on my glossy paper.

I haven't used the toner transfer method myself, but I am pretty sure that you need to use a laser printer to create the image. Inkjet will not work. Black laser printer toner is a mixture of carbon and plastic dust. The last stage of laser printing is to pass the paper through a fuser, which melts the plastic dust with a pair of heated rollers so it will stick to the paper. When you iron the special paper against the PCB, you're re-melting the toner so that it will stick to the PCB as it cools. Ink jet ink is a pigment carried by a liquid solvent, and it doesn't work the same way.

To be honest, even though I design PCBs for a living, I've never manufactured one myself. Even for my home projects, I have them made by quick-turn PCB houses.

-- 
Mark J. Blair, NF6X <nf6x at nf6x.net>
http://www.nf6x.net/