This is why I like bigclive. You start out by testing an etching photoresist, and then end up building a color-changing tree. And diagnosing a faulty lead. 10/10
why? what's the purpose of that shit? what's that ugly thing? i mean really, this man needs help. What's the pupose of watching someone drawing schematics of the worstest shit from china?
What's worse? Us for watching something that we enjoy or you purposely coming onto a video of something you don't enjoy and berating strangers? Get back to Minecraft and fidget spinners you sad little boy.
*Your problem with the Sodium persulfate is heat.* It doesn't do much at room temperature, but at 30°C you get an immediate reaction and at 40°C it is very quick. There's an upper limit where it starts to degrade on its own. I don't exactly know what it was but somewhere around 50°C. I usually heat the solution to a point where I can still put my fingers in without hurting (so I guess that's between 40 and 50°C). A halogen flood light works well for that ;) . Put it in a transparent container on top of that and you have the additional benefit of light shining through the board so you can easily tell if the small holes in the pads have been etched. There's also no problem keeping the etchant around for month or even years if stored cool. Just don't store it in a completely gas tight container, because there's always a little bit of oxygen coming out of the solution. Having a used solution with a little bit of copper in it actually accelerates the etching process. Over all it's much cleaner than ferric chloride and the results are sharper in my opinion (that also depends on the way of exposure of course).
I imagine bigclive giving directions to his friends to get to visit his house: "Yeah, once you dock at the Island of Man, you'll see an eye blistering glowing orb from the distance, just get that light"
ok . im really having fun watching this process, clive your so cool with all these homade circut board videos! its like i havent even dented your library of old videos. Thank you so much for all of these.
It has started oozing very slightly at pinholes on the seam. I've just made a new bag up with a fresh length of heavy duty layflat tubing and some suitable bag seals.
Very good. Takes me back to when my dad used this technique on silk screens for his screen printing. Once the screen has the hardened gel on it, he could knock off hundreds of t-shirts or machine gauges. That all disappeared over the years with cheaper automation, but it was a skill to be admired.
This was very entertaining to watch. I work in the industrial field and remember learning how to do this in the late 80s/early 90s. Back then an industrial circuit board would cost sometimes $10k. So i had to learn how to trouble shoot and repair boards at the component level. I feel that this is now a lost art due to boards being pumped out from just about everywhere and also PLCs replaced a lot of dedicated circuit boards. So I had to learn to write PLC logic. I really enjoy your videos. Thanks.
That bit about storing Ferric Chloride for 10 years and it still working is no joke. I have a bottle I purchased from radio shack in 2002 that's still about half full I use occasionally. It still works as good as the day I bought it. Now, you may ask why I still have a partial bottle of etchant from that long ago. The way i etch my boards, it takes very little etchant to do the job. I heat it up in the microwave until its luke warm, then soak a sponge. Then in a plastic container, wipe the board with it. When the sponge looses the etchant, soak it back up from the container and repeat until it's etched. Usually only takes 3-5 minutes to etch a 5x8 cm double-sided board. When done squeze the etchant out of the sponge into a "used etchant" container and reuse until it's expired. This method really saves a lot of etchant and makes a bottle last forever! Hope that's useful for someone.
I've been using Sodium Persulfate for years, it works very well if used properly. The key thing you were missing here is heat. They way I do is to use two old icecream containers or similar. Boil some water and pour a good amount into the first container, sit the other one inside and put about a tablespoon of the crystals in (depends on board size but for the board you made it would've been enough). Now add just enough water to cover the PCB and add a wee bit extra. Plop the board in and keep swirling the etchant around. The first few seconds it might look like nothing it happening but then it rapidly starts getting to work and in 2-5 minutes it's done. The reason I use two containers like that is so I can use a small amount of etchant and still keep it at temperature so it works quickly. The small amount I use I then discard. You use so little of it and it's so cheap that it's silly to keep the solution around IMHO.
Yes it needs heat, bubbles also good, regarding aging I have used 2 year old solution with out trouble, great blessing is it doesn't stain like Ferric Chloride. Enjoyed the video!
I just cannot get over the etch-resist's color. That glorious blue-ish purple! And then with the copper! That just does a lot for me. >>Look at this guy, fixating on colors. ;P
This looks very good, I imagine a 'trunk' of about 50 of these with brown and green cables would look incredible. I wonder how long you get away with making the leads to enhance the effect.
Well you've trumped anything in my imagination, that's truly amazing. I should make one for a friend who isn't able to keep real bonsai trees in the land of the living.
Very cool. I've used that way of powering a project before (cheap eBay USB cable and slots in the PCB for a cable tie) - it's a fantastic way of powering things, especially for designing kits for school students. They're obviously unlikely to have a bench-top power supply or even a 12V wall-wart with the right connector, but pretty much guaranteed to have a USB charger or power bank!
Clive, back in the 70's when I first started toying with photo etching. I came across a spray on light sensitive material. It worked quite well as long as the copper was clean. I was able to paint a batch of boards and keep them for a couple of years with great results each time. Sorry that I have not kept track as to weather or not it is still available. Much easier than squeegees and laminating machines, I imagine.
Would have like to see a close-up to see how accurate it is. I use the Ebay waxy yellow paper with toner transfer, and it leaves holes in the centre of pads. I actually put 0.4mm vias on all pads so the it centres the drill more accurately, and they etch fine.
How handy, completely forgot you had made this video. I've bought some of that dry film, mine came on a cardboard roll so no creases (I hope, not tried it yet). Worked out that the film and standard boards works out nearly half the price of the ones with the film already on. Just need to finish building the LED exposure box and have a go at my first PCB.
second. no-one called it. interesting. have been toying with the idea of moving my solderless breadboard creations to circuit boards. this video will come in handy when the time comes :)
If you made this just a bit bigger, it could be modified to take a small lithium battery and charger arrangement at the bottom so it could be operated as a stand-alone unit. The pre-fabricated lithium charge boards on ebay (I've seen them as low as 3 € for 10 pieces including shipping from China, which seems preposterous) usually already include a micro USB port, so you could save yourself the hassle of soldering those tiny little surface mount connections.
I agree, though those fleabay lithium battery stuff really tend to make me cringe. I've prototyped 0.5mm pitch QFNs before using very fine wire. It's difficult, but not impossible to do!
I've actually used a toothbrush to scrub the unexposed film off the copper after developing. It takes quite a bit of work to even touch the cured film. Also: I think Persulfate based etchants require heating to etch in reasonable times: something like 50 degrees C or so (I've not used them).
The color changing LEDs look really good, I would put white heatshrink around the LED base and the sockets to mask the connectors and create round bloby light sources
You mentioned soldering micro USBs. I'd love to see a video or get a tip on how to do that because all the ones I come across are surface mounted and seem impossible to replace by hand. Thanks for all the great videos. I have learned so much.
As for the drilling, ive found that what works better than etching the holes, is to take a sharp nail and use it as a centre punch - line it up into the middle of the pad, then give it a small tap with e.g. a pair of pliers. Works very well and stops the drill bit wandering off.
I would love to buy this at the stage pre-drilling, looks so cool as a decorative item just even at that stage let alone e the amazing finished product! I just would love that flat, etched pattern to make into a Big Clive themed fridge magnet
take care using a sponge backed scouring pad. ive found that some brands put some sort of preservative on the sponge (to prevent new sponge funk im guessing) and that stuff can mess up adhesion. ive had issues with it with painting. the ones that are just scotch brite by themselves are fine as far as i know.
It might be worth pointing out (for those new to making PCBs) that there are purpose-made drill bits for putting holes in PCB material (FR4, fiberglass, resin). They're very inexpensive these days, and it is critical to have sharp bits if you intend on making clean holes. FWIW, I use carbide bits in a Proxxon rotary tool & bench press.
I usually put a few drops of baby oil in between the transparency and the dry film and that helps reduce the exposure time because it modifies the refraction index and also it helps stick the two materials really close together
Clive, I regularly etch my own boards and use yellow Laser PCB transfer paper from eBay and the Iron method, as long as you use some wet and dry paper on the copper surface to give a good key, it work's well and is loads cheaper and quicker than using photo resist film
I believe they make a form of the dry-film stuff that has a sticky back with a peel-away plastic protector, so you don't have to worry about lamination or tape or anything like that.
For those jobs, I don't use USB sockets anymore. I have just so much low-voltage dc stuff in my room that I got me a huge psu to deliver a trustable 12v rail. And I bought connectors and cables and every device I get gets the matching connector. Now, I have easy access to 12v every time. For 5v devices, I did the same (smaller connectors), even soldered together a tiny portable 5v supply based on a replacement cellphone battery and a ots power bank circuit I both got on aliexpress. I can really recommend that technique. The voltage drop from 12v in the distance of under 5 meters is very acceptable, even my computer is running on 12v (or let me call it 11.5v) now.
I tried sodium persulfate myself some time ago.. and well, it doesnt work at all unless you heat it quite a bit. With FeCl i normally have a tray inside a larger tray which is filled with hot water from a boiled kettle, and that works fine. For the Sodium Persulfate i had to use an old roasting tray on a hot plate to get it to work!!
Big Clivester is there any chance you could do a design and theory to an end result tutorial? I have learnt so much already from you and I am also so grateful as I have my my lad wanting to do some with me and maybe he could be the next crazy lighting guru!
I used to use the green lacquer spray from RS, expose, develop and etch. Not done that for years and years though, I always buy boards with the UV sensitive stuff already on it.
At some point if it comes up again you mind showing how to use the crimp tool properly in more detail. I'll be honest, i have watched several videos and I feel like I'm just crushing the thing onto the wire, than really making a correct connection?
That opening up everything you buy must be contagious, I find myself doing it all the time now. So far it's all still worked afterwards, but what's life without taking a chance?
Could you do a video about the inner workings of a colour-changing LED? It's pretty clear, but specifically do they use PWM or current limiting to dim the colours? I suspect they need internal current limiting in any case to have different colours on at the same time, so I'm thinking there's a range of voltages that are suitable for these LEDs without any series resistor, am I right? Your design is nicely symmetric and robust, but if you designed a board just for colour-changing LEDs, wouldn't a single 3-volt regulator or something work fine, eliminating the need for 16 resistors and 32 holes?
I used Ferric Chloride etchant once and I hated the stuff, makes a big mess and stains everything it touches. I now use Ammonium Persulfate and it works much better. It does slow down and turn blue as it gets loaded up with copper, and doesn't work very fast unless its heated in a bubble tank to about 40 C. Thank you for making the video, I've seen that same resist film on ebay and wondered how well it worked. What laminator did you use?
I've had good luck with the blue laser-printer sheets but tried the "print on magazine paper then iron on" and had that work OK (not very pretty though). Toner is basically plastic so it is quite amenable to heat transfer.
The center holes on the pads ? This is due to too long exposure to the UV light. Been there, done that. Try 60 second and an old tooth brush when developing. Works a treat. The exposed film is very tough when correctly exposed. I can also get traces as fine as 6mil with a 2 mil spacing if I time the exposure correctly. Too much exposure hits the edges of the film under the Negative and hardens it, making it difficult to develop and remove. I use Ammonium Persulphate all the time. Cleaner and doesn't stink and stain like Ferric Chloride. All you need to do is submerge the bag with the Ammonium Persulphate and Copper clad board into hot water (80 Deg C) and it would etch the board in 3 mins or 5 mins max if you agitate the solution and you just made the solution. By the time it's finished, the water bath might be down to 60 Deg C. I use the same solution again and again (It turns Blue due to the copper) and I dispose of it after about 20 boards or if it takes more than 10 minutes to etch. Shelf life ? I store the used solution in an empty plastic Coke bottle, squeeze out the air and cap it between use. I can go back to it in 1 year and it is as good as gold. I absolutely hate Ferric Chloride. Very dirty, smelly, staining etchant. It's the pits ! I love being able to see the copper fade away in front of my eyes and the second thing is you can keep an eye on 6 mil traces with 2 mil spacing and "See" the 2 mil gap appear. With Ferric Chloride, because you can see bugger all, you have a good chance of over etching fine traces under the tracks and actually dissolve fine traces or cause the "T" syndrome. Give it a try. Once you have, you will never use that Worcestershire Sauce...Oops, sorry, Ferric Chloride again !
In this case it's most probably due to Clive not removing the clear film layer and exposing through it - it's a small dot and light can go under it at an angle from every side. I'm using proper photo films and they don't stick to the emulsion, Clive's film has a coating to accept ink I believe and this may be the cause.
You are not supposed to remove the top film until you are going to develop it. I have worked with All types of films (Dupont, 3M, no name brands etc) for 30 years. You are meant to keep the 1 micron film covering the emulsion on to prevent the air affecting the emulsions capability to be removed cleanly. I used to work for a large PCB manufacturing house making PCB's for NEC telecomunications equipment. Up to 20 layer microwave transmitter boards. This is why it can stick to the negative or even pull off the toner when you use transparencies. Never had an issue with pad holes right down to 5 mil home use unless exposed too long. 20 seconds either way can be too much or too little.
This Chinese film definitely isn't 1 micron. Perhaps Clive could cut his into pieces and measure say 30 of them with a micrometer or at least calipers. No experience in professional PCB making, but 20 years of experience in printing industry and any film between the photofilm and the emulsion, be it on an offset printing plate, a silkscreen or a flexo photopolymer plaate is unheard of. Imaging is done under a vacuum press to ensure maximum contact between the photofilm and the emulsion, because even a tiny amount of distance results in a blurred image and consequently loss of detail.
what do you call the pins you crimp on the wires? i need to put a 3 pin fan header on a pc fan and i have a crimper but i cant find what those pins are that people dont want to charge a fortune for a little amount, cheers again mate and another brilliant video
Add a photoswitch and standard switch in series on one terminal (probably negative here since it's on the edge of the board) to make that a toggleable nightlight. Could probably also add another switch to it to make it turn on/off on-demand as well
Sweet build! Definitely prefer the RGB colour changing LEDs. Would love to see what the effect would be like inside one of those glass craquelar globes you get on Poundland solar garden stake lights.
you need to heat the sodium persulfate solution to about 40 centigrades - then it etches about as fast as ferric chloride, but the solution stays always clear and you can see the board. The solution also does not degrade rapidly when cold again and you can store it at least for weeks and reuse it.
If you want a safe light source to use when working with photo resist there are low UV white lights designed for use in museums and art galleries. I used to work in the PCB industry. Back in the 90s we replaced the yellow lights in our clean rooms with low UV white TL tubes. These days LED lighting is probably an even better option.
Just a thought - the outer rail needn't have so much copper removed (and the bigclivedotcom text could be in negative) - less precise drilling and it'll save on ferric chloride too ;-)
Could use green/brown duct tape or florist tape to wrap the "trunk" and limbs to cover the wires. Mostly green LEDs for "leaves"with some color changing LEDs in the mix would probably look good too.
it usually works quicker if its warmer or at least it did for me yes I like that when it makes a little guide indentation solders nicely why are people messing about with flux and cleaning on a ready made roller tinned board from a kit ?
Positiv 20 is a spray-on photoresist, maybe try that?
7 років тому+1
Just wanted to comment about this spray. I have used it in the past with good success, it just takes a bit of time to dry, then its almost the same quality as those premade PCBs with photoresist layer. Also I didn't want to buy that expensive UV light box made for PCBs, so I bought this UV machine for gel fingernails used in beauty salons for a fraction of the price, with a piece of glass and it works just fine.
I've found that during our warmer months (September to April), daytime sunshine does the job just fine. Mid-summer (December) sun on a clear day will produce a very good result in around 30 seconds.
Unrelated to this video, but: has any one of my fellow newbies tried building the astable multivibrator kit from last month? (The video titled: "Cheap eBay kit build for soldering practice.") A heads up for you: the batteries' voltage matters; it doesn't work with 1.2V batteries (like rechargeable ones). They have to be 1.5v. I tried building it on a breadboard with components I had laying around at the time and it'd get stuck. Ordered a couple eBay kits, assembled one, same issue. Assembled the other on a breadboard, same issue yet again. After fiddling with capacitor and resistor values, it turns out it's the voltage. The higher the voltage, the slower it blinks. At 2.4v, it looks like it's about to blink but then both gets get stuck lit. At 3v, they work just like in BigClive's video. At 3.6v, they work fine but slower. For experienced people: how can we calculate capacitor/resistor values for a given target input voltage?
CPC have a rather nice PCB holder for less than a fiver that you might be interested in under SD02126. The one supplied doesn't have a wingnut end on the spindle but other than than that it's a nice bit of kit. The base is three lengths of steel tube with rubber feet so it should stay put.
Got one of those, they're quite handy but a bit brutal when you have thinner and smaller boards, like .4-mm stuff, and when you have through-hole components right near the edge.
Looks really nice! I like videos like this, please do more! I wonder if you could also take a look at some of those uv solder masks, see how they work out? Or anything else really to make those pcbs look better, I really liked the look of the white laminated pcbs.
The UV solder mask paint works very well, if you take your time and spread it evenly. Just expect green, sticky fingerprints on everything in your work area though. It cleans up with alcohol when it's wet, but once it's exposed to UV light, I haven't found anything that will remove it.
Hi Clive and other electronic enthusiasts, do you have any preferences when it comes to non-insulated crimpers. Something that will do something around those molex-sized connectors? I think its roughly 24 to 18 AWG, or 0.20 to 0.82mm^2. After buying a not-very-good set, crushed rather than rounded-over tabs, and lots of swearing, I would really like to hear what others use.
I was going to, but was concerned about shelf life and they also had an issue with sending them to the Isle of Man as their courier applied a large international shipping charge.
Well if you could have a friend or family on the main land to deliver them too. You could pick them up the next time you visit. It probably wouldn't be very expensive or hard to do that. And concerning the shelf life, like Matt said, I wouldn't worry about it as long as they were kept cool and dark.
Clive very good video ! One query for you. Does the the fact that this type of board being no longer made - effect the boards you provide at your " site " ??
LEDs behind the PCB, using the copper as a light mask so 'BIG CLIVE' shows though. Need to try that same film for electrochemical etching stainless steel.
Three weeks ago I purchased a roll from ebay (china) and one from Amazon to see if there is a difference. You said you had problems using a laminater but didn't go into details. Was the film melting? I had to turn mine down to 220F (105C). I noticed they have this film for masking too (future tutorial?, or the liquid mask). I'm positive I used sodium persulfate in school 25 years ago. We would have a batch made up in a bucket, kept it warm using a fish tank heater and used an aerator to keep the solution agitated. The whole classroom would etch their boards all at one time by suspending them on wires and it would take more than a day. The solution would be a light blueish green when we retrieve them a few days later. Of course back then we did our traces on scratch/transfer decals and finish touches with a tracing pen. Nice video, thanks.
The original instructions suggested laying the film on the laminate and passing it through the laminator, but I found it seemed to bubble up. Maybe there was moisture in the film. I keep it in my LED box now, along with the inkjet transparency material. It's a sealed box with a tub of silica gel to maintain a very low humidity.
Clive, can I ask which laminating machine you use ? Did you put the board inside the cardboard envelope thing to push it through the laminator ? I'm really interested in this process as Rapid no longer stock the PCB board either. This could be a blessing in disguise as often the coating didn't go all the way to the edge but you didn't know until you peeled back the black plastic. Was really annoying on the Euro card size boards if they were for use in a rack.
Re the holes. With the way the light shines, it is probably getting around those small dots and exposing the resist underneath. If you make them a little bigger, it should compensate. If you could measure the other elements of your circuits, you'd probably find they were a little bit smaller than from the print also. There's a word for this but can't remember what it is. (It's "undercut"). It can also be caused by the print not being tight against the resist but could also be caused by the thickness of the resist itself and is definitely inherent in your exposure setup anyway (Not that I'm criticizing it. Well, I guess I am but hopefully in a constructive way). I don't do photo-etch PCBs but I do screenprint sometimes and the light source is several feet from the screen which gives a more parallel light exposure.
This is why I like bigclive. You start out by testing an etching photoresist, and then end up building a color-changing tree. And diagnosing a faulty lead. 10/10
Super result - The proportions look very tree-like, one of your best designs; probably my favourite to date. Well done.
Every time I look at it, I think it really does have the shape of a small tree.
every time i look your videos i think that there's something really wrong in England
Persona Gentile ... It sounds like someone needs a diaper change!
why? what's the purpose of that shit? what's that ugly thing? i mean really, this man needs help. What's the pupose of watching someone drawing schematics of the worstest shit from china?
What's worse? Us for watching something that we enjoy or you purposely coming onto a video of something you don't enjoy and berating strangers?
Get back to Minecraft and fidget spinners you sad little boy.
Clive, you do understand and know that we love you and your videos. As simple as that.
*Your problem with the Sodium persulfate is heat.* It doesn't do much at room temperature, but at 30°C you get an immediate reaction and at 40°C it is very quick. There's an upper limit where it starts to degrade on its own. I don't exactly know what it was but somewhere around 50°C. I usually heat the solution to a point where I can still put my fingers in without hurting (so I guess that's between 40 and 50°C). A halogen flood light works well for that ;) . Put it in a transparent container on top of that and you have the additional benefit of light shining through the board so you can easily tell if the small holes in the pads have been etched.
There's also no problem keeping the etchant around for month or even years if stored cool. Just don't store it in a completely gas tight container, because there's always a little bit of oxygen coming out of the solution. Having a used solution with a little bit of copper in it actually accelerates the etching process.
Over all it's much cleaner than ferric chloride and the results are sharper in my opinion (that also depends on the way of exposure of course).
exactly!
Yep, at work I use 70°C water out of the "Billi" water boiler (used for making tea & coffee).
I imagine bigclive giving directions to his friends to get to visit his house:
"Yeah, once you dock at the Island of Man, you'll see an eye blistering glowing orb from the distance, just get that light"
ok . im really having fun watching this process, clive your so cool with all these homade circut board videos! its like i havent even dented your library of old videos. Thank you so much for all of these.
I like these little project videos you do every now & then, they're very 'Bob Ross'-esque.
Great result, nice to see you doing another little LED project. A very nice, easy and very pleasing design.
10:27 - for a second i thought that the clip on the bag broke - that would have been a mess.
It has started oozing very slightly at pinholes on the seam. I've just made a new bag up with a fresh length of heavy duty layflat tubing and some suitable bag seals.
Discussing the making of happy little LED trees in a soothing voice... Clive is the Bob Ross of electronics.
Very good. Takes me back to when my dad used this technique on silk screens for his screen printing. Once the screen has the hardened gel on it, he could knock off hundreds of t-shirts or machine gauges. That all disappeared over the years with cheaper automation, but it was a skill to be admired.
That technique is still very common.
There are my favorite BigClive videos. PCB making stuff.
This was very entertaining to watch. I work in the industrial field and remember learning how to do this in the late 80s/early 90s. Back then an industrial circuit board would cost sometimes $10k. So i had to learn how to trouble shoot and repair boards at the component level. I feel that this is now a lost art due to boards being pumped out from just about everywhere and also PLCs replaced a lot of dedicated circuit boards. So I had to learn to write PLC logic. I really enjoy your videos. Thanks.
Fun to watch this project all the way through. The orange/black wire combination would be perfect around Halloween.
That bit about storing Ferric Chloride for 10 years and it still working is no joke. I have a bottle I purchased from radio shack in 2002 that's still about half full I use occasionally. It still works as good as the day I bought it. Now, you may ask why I still have a partial bottle of etchant from that long ago. The way i etch my boards, it takes very little etchant to do the job. I heat it up in the microwave until its luke warm, then soak a sponge. Then in a plastic container, wipe the board with it. When the sponge looses the etchant, soak it back up from the container and repeat until it's etched. Usually only takes 3-5 minutes to etch a 5x8 cm double-sided board. When done squeze the etchant out of the sponge into a "used etchant" container and reuse until it's expired. This method really saves a lot of etchant and makes a bottle last forever! Hope that's useful for someone.
I've been using Sodium Persulfate for years, it works very well if used properly. The key thing you were missing here is heat. They way I do is to use two old icecream containers or similar. Boil some water and pour a good amount into the first container, sit the other one inside and put about a tablespoon of the crystals in (depends on board size but for the board you made it would've been enough). Now add just enough water to cover the PCB and add a wee bit extra. Plop the board in and keep swirling the etchant around. The first few seconds it might look like nothing it happening but then it rapidly starts getting to work and in 2-5 minutes it's done.
The reason I use two containers like that is so I can use a small amount of etchant and still keep it at temperature so it works quickly. The small amount I use I then discard. You use so little of it and it's so cheap that it's silly to keep the solution around IMHO.
You are the Bob Ross of circuitry!
Your are the Bob Ross of electronics IMO, it looks awesome!
Sodium persulfate works well and fast, you just need to keep the solution at about 50°C the whole etching time...
This.
Sodium Percarbonate (Oxyclean products) works quite fast and well too.
BILLY MAYS HERE WITH ANOTHER FANTASTIC PRODUCT!
Agree, heating it works a treat and will etch fast
Yes it needs heat, bubbles also good, regarding aging I have used 2 year old solution with out trouble, great blessing is it doesn't stain like Ferric Chloride. Enjoyed the video!
I love your enthusiasm for this stuff.
I just cannot get over the etch-resist's color. That glorious blue-ish purple!
And then with the copper!
That just does a lot for me.
>>Look at this guy, fixating on colors. ;P
This looks very good, I imagine a 'trunk' of about 50 of these with brown and green cables would look incredible. I wonder how long you get away with making the leads to enhance the effect.
Or you could go over the top like I did a long time ago.
www.bigclive.com/bonsai.htm
Well you've trumped anything in my imagination, that's truly amazing. I should make one for a friend who isn't able to keep real bonsai trees in the land of the living.
50 would definitely be worth sending out for manufacturing too.
Very cool. I've used that way of powering a project before (cheap eBay USB cable and slots in the PCB for a cable tie) - it's a fantastic way of powering things, especially for designing kits for school students. They're obviously unlikely to have a bench-top power supply or even a 12V wall-wart with the right connector, but pretty much guaranteed to have a USB charger or power bank!
That was just an excellent video. Really liked the PCB part with good clear explanations
Nice results, I'll have to give the dry film a go, photosensitive boards cost a fortune! Many thanks for the content sir!
Clive, back in the 70's when I first started toying with photo etching. I came across a spray on light sensitive material. It worked quite well as long as the copper was clean. I was able to paint a batch of boards and keep them for a couple of years with great results each time. Sorry that I have not kept track as to weather or not it is still available. Much easier than squeegees and laminating machines, I imagine.
Wow ! Color changing LED's ??? Never seen before something like that. Cool and try friendly too ...
Would have like to see a close-up to see how accurate it is.
I use the Ebay waxy yellow paper with toner transfer, and it leaves holes in the centre of pads. I actually put 0.4mm vias on all pads so the it centres the drill more accurately, and they etch fine.
How handy, completely forgot you had made this video. I've bought some of that dry film, mine came on a cardboard roll so no creases (I hope, not tried it yet). Worked out that the film and standard boards works out nearly half the price of the ones with the film already on.
Just need to finish building the LED exposure box and have a go at my first PCB.
Nice one, Clive. Looks good in colour.
second. no-one called it.
interesting. have been toying with the idea of moving my solderless breadboard creations to circuit boards. this video will come in handy when the time comes :)
If you made this just a bit bigger, it could be modified to take a small lithium battery and charger arrangement at the bottom so it could be operated as a stand-alone unit. The pre-fabricated lithium charge boards on ebay (I've seen them as low as 3 € for 10 pieces including shipping from China, which seems preposterous) usually already include a micro USB port, so you could save yourself the hassle of soldering those tiny little surface mount connections.
I agree, though those fleabay lithium battery stuff really tend to make me cringe.
I've prototyped 0.5mm pitch QFNs before using very fine wire. It's difficult, but not impossible to do!
I've actually used a toothbrush to scrub the unexposed film off the copper after developing. It takes quite a bit of work to even touch the cured film. Also: I think Persulfate based etchants require heating to etch in reasonable times: something like 50 degrees C or so (I've not used them).
I think your finger dexterity is, by far, the most impressive parts of your videos. :P
Have you ever tried the toner transfer method? Works a treat for me, even to make some flexible PCBs with copper clad Kapton.
Thanks, Clive. Careful use of a centre punch helps greatly if the holes are not etched out enough.
The color changing LEDs look really good, I would put white heatshrink around the LED base and the sockets to mask the connectors and create round bloby light sources
You mentioned soldering micro USBs. I'd love to see a video or get a tip on how to do that because all the ones I come across are surface mounted and seem impossible to replace by hand. Thanks for all the great videos. I have learned so much.
As for the drilling, ive found that what works better than etching the holes, is to take a sharp nail and use it as a centre punch - line it up into the middle of the pad, then give it a small tap with e.g. a pair of pliers. Works very well and stops the drill bit wandering off.
I would love to buy this at the stage pre-drilling, looks so cool as a decorative item just even at that stage let alone e the amazing finished product! I just would love that flat, etched pattern to make into a Big Clive themed fridge magnet
I'm curious if it would look better with one LED in the center of the base. Could be nice with some light shining through the wires.
take care using a sponge backed scouring pad. ive found that some brands put some sort of preservative on the sponge (to prevent new sponge funk im guessing) and that stuff can mess up adhesion. ive had issues with it with painting. the ones that are just scotch brite by themselves are fine as far as i know.
Hey Bigclive, what EBay keywords can I use to find those knockoff-molex connectors on EBay? :3 Thanks in advance!
I would like to know, too.
KF2510 2p
Thanks a lot.
Nice. I know what I'll be getting in the mail in 4-8 weeks.
Thanks a lot, mate!
Fantastic! And Clive makes it look so easy!! :-)
What a great project, will have to give it a go myself!
It might be worth pointing out (for those new to making PCBs) that there are purpose-made drill bits for putting holes in PCB material (FR4, fiberglass, resin). They're very inexpensive these days, and it is critical to have sharp bits if you intend on making clean holes. FWIW, I use carbide bits in a Proxxon rotary tool & bench press.
I usually put a few drops of baby oil in between the transparency and the dry film and that helps reduce the exposure time because it modifies the refraction index and also it helps stick the two materials really close together
Wow! Actually really surprised with the result and does look quite like a tree!
Clive, I regularly etch my own boards and use yellow Laser PCB transfer paper from eBay and the Iron method, as long as you use some wet and dry paper on the copper surface to give a good key, it work's well and is loads cheaper and quicker than using photo resist film
I believe they make a form of the dry-film stuff that has a sticky back with a peel-away plastic protector, so you don't have to worry about lamination or tape or anything like that.
For those jobs, I don't use USB sockets anymore. I have just so much low-voltage dc stuff in my room that I got me a huge psu to deliver a trustable 12v rail. And I bought connectors and cables and every device I get gets the matching connector. Now, I have easy access to 12v every time.
For 5v devices, I did the same (smaller connectors), even soldered together a tiny portable 5v supply based on a replacement cellphone battery and a ots power bank circuit I both got on aliexpress.
I can really recommend that technique.
The voltage drop from 12v in the distance of under 5 meters is very acceptable, even my computer is running on 12v (or let me call it 11.5v) now.
I tried sodium persulfate myself some time ago.. and well, it doesnt work at all unless you heat it quite a bit. With FeCl i normally have a tray inside a larger tray which is filled with hot water from a boiled kettle, and that works fine. For the Sodium Persulfate i had to use an old roasting tray on a hot plate to get it to work!!
Very nice project, good looking!
how do resistors respond to flock the green faux grass used in train sets cos that could be turned into a really really nice tree desk illumination
I do love your ornamental lights :)
Big Clivester is there any chance you could do a design and theory to an end result tutorial?
I have learnt so much already from you and I am also so grateful as I have my my lad wanting to do some with me and maybe he could be the next crazy lighting guru!
I used to use the green lacquer spray from RS, expose, develop and etch. Not done that for years and years though, I always buy boards with the UV sensitive stuff already on it.
At some point if it comes up again you mind showing how to use the crimp tool properly in more detail. I'll be honest, i have watched several videos and I feel like I'm just crushing the thing onto the wire, than really making a correct connection?
That opening up everything you buy must be contagious, I find myself doing it all the time now. So far it's all still worked afterwards, but what's life without taking a chance?
Could you do a video about the inner workings of a colour-changing LED? It's pretty clear, but specifically do they use PWM or current limiting to dim the colours? I suspect they need internal current limiting in any case to have different colours on at the same time, so I'm thinking there's a range of voltages that are suitable for these LEDs without any series resistor, am I right? Your design is nicely symmetric and robust, but if you designed a board just for colour-changing LEDs, wouldn't a single 3-volt regulator or something work fine, eliminating the need for 16 resistors and 32 holes?
The resistors sort of look like roots.... very nice design indeed
I used Ferric Chloride etchant once and I hated the stuff, makes a big mess and stains everything it touches. I now use Ammonium Persulfate and it works much better. It does slow down and turn blue as it gets loaded up with copper, and doesn't work very fast unless its heated in a bubble tank to about 40 C. Thank you for making the video, I've seen that same resist film on ebay and wondered how well it worked. What laminator did you use?
Wouldn't it be a good idea to fill as much as possible of the board with a copper pour, to extend the lifetime of the etching solution?
I've had good luck with the blue laser-printer sheets but tried the "print on magazine paper then iron on" and had that work OK (not very pretty though).
Toner is basically plastic so it is quite amenable to heat transfer.
The center holes on the pads ?
This is due to too long exposure to the UV light. Been there, done that.
Try 60 second and an old tooth brush when developing. Works a treat. The exposed film is very tough when correctly exposed. I can also get traces as fine as 6mil with a 2 mil spacing if I time the exposure correctly. Too much exposure hits the edges of the film under the Negative and hardens it, making it difficult to develop and remove.
I use Ammonium Persulphate all the time. Cleaner and doesn't stink and stain like Ferric Chloride.
All you need to do is submerge the bag with the Ammonium Persulphate and Copper clad board into hot water (80 Deg C) and it would etch the board in 3 mins or 5 mins max if you agitate the solution and you just made the solution. By the time it's finished, the water bath might be down to 60 Deg C.
I use the same solution again and again (It turns Blue due to the copper) and I dispose of it after about 20 boards or if it takes more than 10 minutes to etch.
Shelf life ? I store the used solution in an empty plastic Coke bottle, squeeze out the air and cap it between use. I can go back to it in 1 year and it is as good as gold. I absolutely hate Ferric Chloride. Very dirty, smelly, staining etchant. It's the pits !
I love being able to see the copper fade away in front of my eyes and the second thing is you can keep an eye on 6 mil traces with 2 mil spacing and "See" the 2 mil gap appear. With Ferric Chloride, because you can see bugger all, you have a good chance of over etching fine traces under the tracks and actually dissolve fine traces or cause the "T" syndrome.
Give it a try. Once you have, you will never use that Worcestershire Sauce...Oops, sorry, Ferric Chloride again !
One could also use a sharp center punch to mark the hole centers.
dlock2k: but it couldn't be as precisely placed as a printed dot, i wouldn't think
In this case it's most probably due to Clive not removing the clear film layer and exposing through it - it's a small dot and light can go under it at an angle from every side.
I'm using proper photo films and they don't stick to the emulsion, Clive's film has a coating to accept ink I believe and this may be the cause.
You are not supposed to remove the top film until you are going to develop it.
I have worked with All types of films (Dupont, 3M, no name brands etc) for 30 years. You are meant to keep the 1 micron film covering the emulsion on to prevent the air affecting the emulsions capability to be removed cleanly. I used to work for a large PCB manufacturing house making PCB's for NEC telecomunications equipment. Up to 20 layer microwave transmitter boards. This is why it can stick to the negative or even pull off the toner when you use transparencies.
Never had an issue with pad holes right down to 5 mil home use unless exposed too long. 20 seconds either way can be too much or too little.
This Chinese film definitely isn't 1 micron. Perhaps Clive could cut his into pieces and measure say 30 of them with a micrometer or at least calipers.
No experience in professional PCB making, but 20 years of experience in printing industry and any film between the photofilm and the emulsion, be it on an offset printing plate, a silkscreen or a flexo photopolymer plaate is unheard of. Imaging is done under a vacuum press to ensure maximum contact between the photofilm and the emulsion, because even a tiny amount of distance results in a blurred image and consequently loss of detail.
what do you call the pins you crimp on the wires? i need to put a 3 pin fan header on a pc fan and i have a crimper but i cant find what those pins are that people dont want to charge a fortune for a little amount, cheers again mate and another brilliant video
Add a photoswitch and standard switch in series on one terminal (probably negative here since it's on the edge of the board) to make that a toggleable nightlight. Could probably also add another switch to it to make it turn on/off on-demand as well
Your Videos are so therapeutic :)
very neat idea, funny how we made some pcb's at uni with that exact same process you used
Could this be done with some of that funky pulsing charger cable wire in white etc...end up with a funky glowing tree of life.....thing?
Sweet build! Definitely prefer the RGB colour changing LEDs. Would love to see what the effect would be like inside one of those glass craquelar globes you get on Poundland solar garden stake lights.
you need to heat the sodium persulfate solution to about 40 centigrades - then it etches about as fast as ferric chloride, but the solution stays always clear and you can see the board. The solution also does not degrade rapidly when cold again and you can store it at least for weeks and reuse it.
excellent very enjoyable to watch as always
Thanks Clive
If you want a safe light source to use when working with photo resist there are low UV white lights designed for use in museums and art galleries. I used to work in the PCB industry. Back in the 90s we replaced the yellow lights in our clean rooms with low UV white TL tubes. These days LED lighting is probably an even better option.
I use a unit that is fitted with standard longwave blacklight style tubes, so the wavelength is not really hazardous.
Love this channel! Do you take requests? there's some ebay lights id love to get your opinion on.
Your rubbing is so gentle - do you have lots of experience with that??
Just a thought - the outer rail needn't have so much copper removed (and the bigclivedotcom text could be in negative) - less precise drilling and it'll save on ferric chloride too ;-)
Could use green/brown duct tape or florist tape to wrap the "trunk" and limbs to cover the wires.
Mostly green LEDs for "leaves"with some color changing LEDs in the mix would probably look good too.
Very impressive, I've been toying with the idea of that UV film - better than the Seno SN100 lacquer I assume?
it usually works quicker if its warmer or at least it did for me yes I like that when it makes a little guide indentation solders nicely why are people messing about with flux and cleaning on a ready made roller tinned board from a kit ?
That was really cool, thanks for sharing.
What do I need to search on Amazon to find the whit snap connectors you use...I can't find them anywhere!! This project is awesome!! Thanks Clive!!
The crimp connectors I use seem to be on eBay with the keyword:-
kf2510
@@bigclivedotcom thankyou so much for your reply!! You're a legend!
very cool process ....would it work with the exposure to the nail uv lamp though?
Yes it would.
Could you talk about Flux - Pen or Paste? Rosin or Water Based. and the Pink one too :)
Positiv 20 is a spray-on photoresist, maybe try that?
Just wanted to comment about this spray. I have used it in the past with good success, it just takes a bit of time to dry, then its almost the same quality as those premade PCBs with photoresist layer. Also I didn't want to buy that expensive UV light box made for PCBs, so I bought this UV machine for gel fingernails used in beauty salons for a fraction of the price, with a piece of glass and it works just fine.
I've found that during our warmer months (September to April), daytime sunshine does the job just fine. Mid-summer (December) sun on a clear day will produce a very good result in around 30 seconds.
Pretty cool. I think green leds with a few red would look like apple tree. :D
Unrelated to this video, but: has any one of my fellow newbies tried building the astable multivibrator kit from last month? (The video titled: "Cheap eBay kit build for soldering practice.") A heads up for you: the batteries' voltage matters; it doesn't work with 1.2V batteries (like rechargeable ones). They have to be 1.5v.
I tried building it on a breadboard with components I had laying around at the time and it'd get stuck. Ordered a couple eBay kits, assembled one, same issue. Assembled the other on a breadboard, same issue yet again.
After fiddling with capacitor and resistor values, it turns out it's the voltage. The higher the voltage, the slower it blinks. At 2.4v, it looks like it's about to blink but then both gets get stuck lit. At 3v, they work just like in BigClive's video. At 3.6v, they work fine but slower.
For experienced people: how can we calculate capacitor/resistor values for a given target input voltage?
voltage divider calculator (google it) might be useful?
Jusb1066 thanks for the tip. I'll look into it. Thanks for helping this newbie understand the circuit :)
I like that film - it's much better than the laser printer transfer process.
19:25 I originally thought that center section was supposed to be a face, not an integrated cable tie system.
CPC have a rather nice PCB holder for less than a fiver that you might be interested in under SD02126. The one supplied doesn't have a wingnut end on the spindle but other than than that it's a nice bit of kit. The base is three lengths of steel tube with rubber feet so it should stay put.
Got one of those, they're quite handy but a bit brutal when you have thinner and smaller boards, like .4-mm stuff, and when you have through-hole components right near the edge.
Looks really nice! I like videos like this, please do more! I wonder if you could also take a look at some of those uv solder masks, see how they work out? Or anything else really to make those pcbs look better, I really liked the look of the white laminated pcbs.
The UV solder mask paint works very well, if you take your time and spread it evenly. Just expect green, sticky fingerprints on everything in your work area though.
It cleans up with alcohol when it's wet, but once it's exposed to UV light, I haven't found anything that will remove it.
Hi Clive and other electronic enthusiasts, do you have any preferences when it comes to non-insulated crimpers. Something that will do something around those molex-sized connectors? I think its roughly 24 to 18 AWG, or 0.20 to 0.82mm^2. After buying a not-very-good set, crushed rather than rounded-over tabs, and lots of swearing, I would really like to hear what others use.
There are a wide range of crimping tools and crimps, but the one I use is like this:- www.rapidonline.com/ratchet-action-crimp-tool-ht225d-85-0262
Thanks.
glad to see that your choice of sponge is the pink one ! foxy would have chosen an orange one
I would suggest while you still have time to purchase a large case or 2 of the pre-made stuff you were using before.
I was going to, but was concerned about shelf life and they also had an issue with sending them to the Isle of Man as their courier applied a large international shipping charge.
Well if you could have a friend or family on the main land to deliver them too. You could pick them up the next time you visit. It probably wouldn't be very expensive or hard to do that. And concerning the shelf life, like Matt said, I wouldn't worry about it as long as they were kept cool and dark.
Clive very good video ! One query for you. Does the the fact that this type of board being no longer made - effect the boards you provide at your " site " ??
Never mind.....It's late - early and i answered my own qwestion
LEDs behind the PCB, using the copper as a light mask so 'BIG CLIVE' shows though.
Need to try that same film for electrochemical etching stainless steel.
Three weeks ago I purchased a roll from ebay (china) and one from Amazon to see if there is a difference. You said you had problems using a laminater but didn't go into details. Was the film melting? I had to turn mine down to 220F (105C). I noticed they have this film for masking too (future tutorial?, or the liquid mask). I'm positive I used sodium persulfate in school 25 years ago. We would have a batch made up in a bucket, kept it warm using a fish tank heater and used an aerator to keep the solution agitated. The whole classroom would etch their boards all at one time by suspending them on wires and it would take more than a day. The solution would be a light blueish green when we retrieve them a few days later. Of course back then we did our traces on scratch/transfer decals and finish touches with a tracing pen. Nice video, thanks.
The original instructions suggested laying the film on the laminate and passing it through the laminator, but I found it seemed to bubble up. Maybe there was moisture in the film. I keep it in my LED box now, along with the inkjet transparency material. It's a sealed box with a tub of silica gel to maintain a very low humidity.
Did you try taking the lead back for a replacement/refund?
Clive, can I ask which laminating machine you use ? Did you put the board inside the cardboard envelope thing to push it through the laminator ? I'm really interested in this process as Rapid no longer stock the PCB board either. This could be a blessing in disguise as often the coating didn't go all the way to the edge but you didn't know until you peeled back the black plastic. Was really annoying on the Euro card size boards if they were for use in a rack.
+Joe Farr I sandwich the PCB between two sheets of ordinary paper to feed it through a standard laminator.
Re the holes. With the way the light shines, it is probably getting around those small dots and exposing the resist underneath. If you make them a little bigger, it should compensate. If you could measure the other elements of your circuits, you'd probably find they were a little bit smaller than from the print also. There's a word for this but can't remember what it is. (It's "undercut"). It can also be caused by the print not being tight against the resist but could also be caused by the thickness of the resist itself and is definitely inherent in your exposure setup anyway (Not that I'm criticizing it. Well, I guess I am but hopefully in a constructive way). I don't do photo-etch PCBs but I do screenprint sometimes and the light source is several feet from the screen which gives a more parallel light exposure.