Toner transfer no-soak, high-quality, double sided PCBs at home

Warning: There are hot surfaces, chemicals and possibly ill advised actions like you would expect in many Instructables here. You will also be running tape and un-approved paper through a laser printer. There is a very real danger of messing up your printer. If you do wreck a printer please comment so we can all learn a valuable lesson.

There are some good Instructables on using toner transfer, but after doing my own for a while I have some refinements on the process that I want to share. You should be able to create high-quality, well aligned double sided boards every time.

If you are just dealing with a basic board for 0.1" pitch through hole components this is probably overkill. A good instructable for those kinds of boards this one by pinomelean.

I have made excellent boards with 8 mill pads and 12 mill clearances.

There are a few secrets. 1. a laser printer. 2. a hot laminator. 3. (The big  secret) Parchment cooking paper. 4. Careful and diligent cleaning of the board.

If you follow my directions to the letter you can get great results.
Follow @dustin1970

 

 

Step 1: Gather supplies and materials

Tools

• Laminator. Digikey part number 182-1031-ND. $114 at time of writing.
  • MCUman says "Harbor Freight sells a 9" laminator for 30 bucks. I've had mine for a couple of years now, I use it often, and it works GREAT! Item number 92499."
• Laser printer. Mine is an HP LaserJet P1102w.
  • dasclown says a Dell 5100 cn laserjet did not work.
  • If you know of one that does/does not work, comment please.
• Scissors
• Scotch Bright sponge
• etching "tank"
• Leather gloves for handling the hot board (or a towel, or your shirt. It's not that hot.)
• Multi-meter
• Sewing needles
• Alligator clip wires
• Drill press or dremel and tiny drill bits needed for your design. Harbor Freight sells a cheap multi pack of tiny bits.

Supplies

• Glass cook top cleaner
• Acetone
• Tarn-X tarnish remover
• Parchment paper from the grocery store
• heavy duty zip top bags
• Kapton tape (1/4" is best) - no substitutions!
• 1/2oz x 1/16th" copper board
• Stranded copper wire. Something with fairly thin strands. Jumper wires the cat chewed in half work good. (See photo 3)

Recommended Etching Supplies

• Rubber gloves
• Muratic Acid (or Acid Magic from Ace Hardware)
• Hydrogen peroxide
• glass measuring vessel
• plastic/wood utensils
• ecthing "tank" - Pyrex dish
• rinsing tank

Comments

[MCUman]

Harbor Freight sells a 9" laminator for 30 bucks. I've had mine for a couple of years now, I use it often, and it works GREAT! Item number 92499.

This is a very well done Instructable. Kudos for the insight to use a laminator vs the standard iron. Well Done!

[dustinandrews]

Excellent information! I'll add it to the Instructable.

[NinjaCrow]

It is quite possible that I am the only one who finds it amusing that the Parchment paper states on the box "& More" and this clearly falls into the "& More " category. Arguably the best category EVER!

I've been putting off quite a few projects that need etching because I could never find a good medium for toner transfer that wasn't unnecessarily expensive. So I'll definitely be giving this a try and hope it gives my projects the kick in the pants they so desperately require :)

[dasclown]

Nice instructable. I'm always looking for a better way for toner transfer. I've had little success with other methods.
One question though. I have the same parchment paper you are using and I am using a dell 5100 cn laserjet. I run the paper through and it seems none of the toner will stick to the parchment. I have to run a couple sheets of paper through to get the toner cleaned up from the roller.

Any Ideas? I'll probably need to hunt down a different printer to try it on.

[dustinandrews]

I suspect it is just the printer. Please consider trying some others out and letting us know what you find.

[dustinandrews]

I also added your printer info to the gather supplies step. Thanks for the report. I love it when the internet makes us collectively smarter.

[offtherails2010]

Ok so im back once again - lol !

Just wanted to say a great many thanks once again for this instructable, i now cannot live without parchment paper for all my homebrew PCB needs - AND NO SOAKING ANYMORE !!!! !!!! !!!!

Just made an SMD version of a Through-Hole PCB i made a good while back (a Low-Battery-Indicator!) where i had traces of about 1.2mm thick ( about 47 mils ) but in the SMD PCB i had made only a few traces as thin as 0.5mm Thick for testing ( about 19.6 mils !!! ) - Very Cool !

NO-WAY would i had been able to do that with the rough handling of the soak method rubbing the paper off of the board etc but i have had my 1st ATMEGA328P-AU SMD Microcontroller through today, a 32-Pin TQFP Package, so will be making another PCB with all thin traces just to see how far i can go !

Here's a few photo's !

& Once again thanks for a GREAT instrucable !!!

[dustinandrews]

I've done chips as small as TSSOP successfully. Love to see your board with the TQFN.

[pmcquain]

Regarding giving the parchment paper a spritz of isopropyl, do you let it dry before trying to print, or run it through freshly spritzed?

[veeDubbah]

I have the same printer and the same parchment paper as you. I am using the laminator that MCUman suggested and when I am done running it through the laminator all the traces look cracked. A bit like dried salt deserts. Any suggestions on how I can get all the toner to transfer?

[dustinandrews]

90% of the time when i get a poor transfer it's due to not doing a good job of cleaning the board first. It's got to be super-duper clean. The other 10% of the time my laminator hadn't had time to get hot enough. Make sure to pre-heat it for at least 20 min.

[foxxtrotalpha]

Really cool. I used to use the toner transfer method, but ended up switching to the photo resist method. Gets excellent quality, and the stencil can be reused. This is the first time I have seen parchment paper used for toner transfer, so Ill definitely give it a shot. Thanks for the instructable.

[krahabors]

I have tried different kinds of parchment paper, also backing papers from different kinds of self-adhesive materials, and all of those failed, as printer is unable to apply toner to them good enough. Printing comes out of printer already smeared-off, with dark trail of a toner on the remainder of a sheet.

[dustinandrews]

Thanks! My experiments with photoresist have gone poorly. I had an absolutely gorgeous looking board on one side but the other side was over developed. When etched it, random bits of the photoresist just floated off! I was using Muratic Acid + Hydrogen Peroxide. I also need a better exposure light and to dial in the timing better.

[barthie]

great instructable! i have the same parchment paper. my printer is an hp laserjet 1022n. i tried printing using paper types of plain, transparency and vellum with print qualities of prores 1200 and 600 dpi. they all came out smeared. has anyone had success with this printer?

[terramir]

Tried this method with my brother hl-5240 (mind you I have a generic cartridge so it works with photo paper but somehow I can't get the prints to come out right with the parchment paper go figure :S
what printer do you use? that actually works?
terramir

[dustinandrews]

Mine is an HP LaserJet P1102w. HP CP1025nw is known to work on "transparency setting". Other laser printers are said to work but I don't have model numbers.

[pmcquain]

What's the purpose of the TarnX step if its already been cleaned well with the stovetop cleaner?

[dustinandrews]

I found the toner to adhere better when I did this step than when I didn't.

[brycetron]

Parchment paper with Samsung ML-1740 has issues (toner not sticking to parchment paper). The manual states that you can open the door in the back to provide a straight paper path. This may work, if the parchment paper is taped to another piece of paper.

I will give this a try!

Currently I am trying to use laser transparencies (with some success), main problem being to much heat/pressure applied and transparency sticking :-( I've already hacked my laminator, so I think I just need to mess around with temp/timings.

P.S.
Great instuctable!

[dustinandrews]

Have you tried cleaning the parchment paper with denatured alcohol first? If you are doing transparencies, have you tried photoresist?
Just today I am trying a new brand of parchment with mixed results. I think the laminator wasn't hot enough.

[ollopa]

FUUUUUU!U!UU!!!!!!!

I need a cat for this!

[Tur0k]

Printer comment:

I have an HP CP1025nw color laser printer. It smeared my board layouts pretty badly on default settings, but taping the parchment down well and using "transparency printing" settings gives great results.

[dustinandrews]

Excellent information. Thank you very much for sharing.

[AlexHenrique]

I put soldering flux on the board and use tin with clothes iron on top of the PCB after etching, but before drilling. The board is completely thinned.

[AlexHenrique]

You can see the process here and the next photos:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/24143380@N08/7448711054/in/photostream

[dustinandrews]

Consider taking some photos and make an Instructable. :)

[Agent24]

I would also like to know what process of tinning you are talking of... it sounds rather interesting!

[richardrrr]

What sort of tin?

[ls1244678]

You mean tinned, right? Can you elaborate?

[WearTheMusicCo]

Instead of the isopropyl alcohol, has anyone used denatured alcohol? I use that to clean copper all the time but want to also use it on the parchment paper. Anyone? Thanks!

[shazan-1]

great way
i made pcb with the soaking and is pain in the a*s

there is out the a way to make it with inkjet printer?!

[lookwhatjoeysmaking]

vary nice

[dustinandrews]

Thanks Joey. Let me know if you try it out.

[Halt! I am Reptar]

"Brother" brand printers do NOT work, they use a toner that needs to get wayyy too hot for the laminator or even an iron to transfer.

Scotch makes a $25 laminator (TL-901) that I've seen at walmart, walgreens and target. I use it and it works perfectly for me if I make about 7 passes through it. It only needs to warm up for 5 or 10 minutes. It acts like it doesn't want to take the board, it will sortof pop it out at the end but that hasn't caused any problems yet and I've done a few dozen boards with it. Always double sided, all sorts of sizes.

I use magazine paper and I'm pretty happy with it. It only needs to soak in water for a minute and it peels right off. I then scrub it with the soft side of a sponge to make sure its all gone.

I use a $70 drill from harbor freight. It's pretty overkill but it doesn't wobble enough to cause a problem and it doubles as an enclosure hole drill.

[diy_bloke]

I guess everybody has their own recipe. I use Hydrochloric acid mainly, with just a few drops of H2O2

[senoleker]

If you do not have a laminator, you can use iron.

[dustinandrews]

There are a lot of instructions for using an iron, and a lot of complaints about it. If you use an iron and can make a board with 10mil traces and 12 mill clearance I'd love to hear about it. I never tried the iron because the laminator seemed to be prefered.

[diy_bloke]

i use an iron coz i dont have a laminator and it works quite well. I press it on flat for about 45 seconds and then I take the nose pf the iron to really rub all parts of the PCB.

I admitt yr laminator is way more nifty, but i ant got one :-)

[calamitydrains]

There is an example of some fine geometry (10mil/10mil) done double sided with a clothes iron and magazine paper here. I'm not claiming it wasn't a pain to do but it is possible:
http://retrorides.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=othrmod&thread=113954&page=1

Great instructable. I will definitely give parchment paper a try.