As makers, we should always all thank our fortunate stars that it’s now straightforward and reasonably priced to get skilled PCBs in simply a few weeks. However generally even that brief period of time is an excessive amount of of a wait once you wish to rapidly check a brand new design. Generally, you desire a functioning PCB the identical day and that’s the reason you might flip to the previous DIY PCB fabrication strategies that had been standard among the many makers of yore. In the event you take the chemical route, then you possibly can velocity up the method by constructing this automated agitator designed by Chris Borge.
In contrast to PCB milling, which merely cuts away the copper cladding of a clean circuit board, chemical etching dissolves the copper. Earlier than beginning etching, you will need to first apply a masks to guard the parts of the copper (traces and pads) that you just wish to maintain. There are completely different masking strategies, however all of them depart the remainder of the copper uncovered. The circuit board clean then goes into a shower of chemical etchant that eats means the entire unmasked copper.
It might probably take some time (usually hours) to dissolve the copper, however agitation will velocity up the method. It’s like churning garments in soapy water, fairly than letting them soak. As a result of guide agitation is boring and tiring, Borge designed this fundamental machine to do the work routinely.
This machine is about so simple as they arrive. It has a platform for the PCB to relaxation on, inside a bag filled with the chemical etchant. That platform than tilts backwards and forwards in an infinite cycle, sloshing the liquid round. And that’s it — agitation achieved!
Other than bearings and fasteners, nearly the entire mechanical components for this mission are 3D-printable. Borge hasn’t carried out so but, however he normally uploads his designs. When/if he does, anybody can construct their very own agitator.
As a result of the movement is so easy, it will have been doable to attach a DC motor on to energy and let that drive a reciprocating mechanism. However as a substitute, Borge used an Arduino to regulate a servo motor that does the identical factor. Possibly that may be a frivolous use of a microcontroller, but it surely actually simplifies the mechanical design. Both means, it appears to work nice and now Borge can have PCBs prepared to check very quickly.