| dc.description.abstract | Abstract: There are multiple methods of
manufacturing printed circuit boards (PCB). The
approach used by electronic enthusiasts is ironing
the circuit from the glossy paper onto the copper
plate (the homemade method). Industrial PCB
manufacturers use laser cutting or computerized
numerical control milling to cut the pathways, thus
etching the circuit on the board. The former is timeconsuming and the latter carries the risk of
damaging the board during the manufacturing
process, in addition to several other drawbacks.
The approach that is presented in this paper avoids
these disadvantages. In the proposed method, a
polyvinyl chloride sticker is pasted on the copper
board and unwanted sections of the sticker are
removed by using laser cutting. Subsequently, the
copper board with the sticker is immersed in a
ferric chloride solution, washed off and the
remaining parts of the sticker are removed. The
advantages of this approach are the capability of
accurately obtaining fine tracks (of 30 mil in
width) and being comparatively less timeconsuming than other methods used by electronics
enthusiasts. In this paper, the procedure for
making a PCB with the proposed method is laid out.
Then, the function and design of a low-power laser
cutter to accomplish the former is discussed. | en_US |
