PCB printing - which printer to use? - UK Vintage Radio Repair and Restoration Discussion Forum

GMB · 5th Nov 2008, 12:31 pm

Does anyone know of a printer that can print transparencies where the black is really opaque?

I used to have the luxury of professional plots for printing PCBs thanks to a guy down the road with a real photo-plotter in his garage. Sadly no more.

I have tried HP Laserjet-4 making transparencies but the results were not great thanks to thermal distortion (in spite of the special paper) - and now the printer is old and mangy.

I recently got an old HP-6122 inkjet (for a project that specifically needed this model) but it's transparencies are not so good - and getting worse by the day thanks to "improved" print drivers and some change to transparency paper. But it was never that good - needing two layers, which isn't very satisfactory.

Surely there must be a printer out there that can print photographic quality transparencies? Resolution is no problem these days. The ideal printer would come with a print driver where you can control the quantity of ink laid down and so that you can turn this right up to get a solid black in spite of ending up very wet.

wave solder · 5th Nov 2008, 12:41 pm

I use a very old Digital LN03 laser printer, with this and a lot of the older laser printers you could manually alter the density of toner which is applied.

Aerodyne · 5th Nov 2008, 1:21 pm

Dunno if this low-tech method would meet with your approval, but in my teaching days we made masks by laser-printing onto reasonable quality paper then spraying the paper with WD-40 to allow light to pass through it. When exposed in an ultra-violet light box we obtained perfect exposures - and perfect boards after etching.
Saves a lot of fiddling with transparent medium.
-Tony

Vicboduk · 6th Nov 2008, 2:38 pm

If you don’t need track sizes less than 20thou/0.5mm I find just printing on ordinary A4 paper on any laser printer capable of a good bold black works fine for me. Just adjust your UV exposure time to suit. I buy standard pre-sensitised FR4 board from Farnell and give it approx 8 minutes; my UV box has 4 x 15 Watt tubes and a timer that has a maximum period of 500 seconds.(hence 8 minutes!)

5th Nov 2008, 12:31 pm	#1
GMB Dekatron Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: near Reading (and sometimes Torquay) Posts: 3,094	PCB printing - which printer to use? Does anyone know of a printer that can print transparencies where the black is really opaque? I used to have the luxury of professional plots for printing PCBs thanks to a guy down the road with a real photo-plotter in his garage. Sadly no more. I have tried HP Laserjet-4 making transparencies but the results were not great thanks to thermal distortion (in spite of the special paper) - and now the printer is old and mangy. I recently got an old HP-6122 inkjet (for a project that specifically needed this model) but it's transparencies are not so good - and getting worse by the day thanks to "improved" print drivers and some change to transparency paper. But it was never that good - needing two layers, which isn't very satisfactory. Surely there must be a printer out there that can print photographic quality transparencies? Resolution is no problem these days. The ideal printer would come with a print driver where you can control the quantity of ink laid down and so that you can turn this right up to get a solid black in spite of ending up very wet.

5th Nov 2008, 12:41 pm	#2
wave solder Hexode Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Chesterfield, Derbyshire, UK. Posts: 483	Re: PCB printing - which printer to use? I use a very old Digital LN03 laser printer, with this and a lot of the older laser printers you could manually alter the density of toner which is applied.

5th Nov 2008, 1:21 pm	#3
Aerodyne Octode Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Hampton Vale, Peterborough, UK. Posts: 1,698	Re: PCB printing - which printer to use? Dunno if this low-tech method would meet with your approval, but in my teaching days we made masks by laser-printing onto reasonable quality paper then spraying the paper with WD-40 to allow light to pass through it. When exposed in an ultra-violet light box we obtained perfect exposures - and perfect boards after etching. Saves a lot of fiddling with transparent medium. -Tony

6th Nov 2008, 2:38 pm	#4
Vicboduk Hexode Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: S.W. London, UK. Posts: 416	Re: PCB printing - which printer to use? If you don’t need track sizes less than 20thou/0.5mm I find just printing on ordinary A4 paper on any laser printer capable of a good bold black works fine for me. Just adjust your UV exposure time to suit. I buy standard pre-sensitised FR4 board from Farnell and give it approx 8 minutes; my UV box has 4 x 15 Watt tubes and a timer that has a maximum period of 500 seconds.(hence 8 minutes!) __________________ It has to be here... I've just put it down!