3rd Day dated September 9, 2011 (Fri)
D. Cutting Out Excess Masking Tapes
Anyways, let’s proceed. Using a cutter, we cut out the excess masking tape on the PCB’s design. By excess, I mean the white parts which were unnecessary already. It wasn’t that easy for both of us to cut the traced outline on the masking tape especially since we’re both not pro’s in assembling a power supply. Fortunately, after cutting accurately and cutting carefully, we made it. (Clap,clap) .. The brown apparent thing will be dissolved when immersed on the Ferric Chloride and that is why the white parts traced are left untouched – to keep the necessary copper parts underneath them from being dissolved by the Ferric Chloride. How come? Well, I have no idea either.
After the cutting part, we prepared a container where the PCB will be immersed on Ferric Chloride- a chemical solution for specific purposes which are – I don’t know. We had to be extra careful on pouring the FC solution on the container so we used gloves instead of just bare hands. For more or less thirty minutes (30mins.), we left the container with the FC solution and the PCB on a warm place, but not directly under the sun, although our instructor already advised us that etching works best under warm temperature. So after 30 minutes of waiting, we cautiously took the PCB out from the FC solution. Then Julius immediately washed the PCB on running water so as to get rid of some FC solution which remained on the PCB, and wiped it with a clean, smooth cloth after which, I disposed the container with the FC to avoid hazardous effects on the environment and on my fellowmen – talk about being pro-Earth and patriotic – Haha… After drying the wet PCB, we detached the white parts – the masking tape ones left on the PCB before immersing it on FC. And there it was, our very own finished Printed Circuit Board design. To our disappointment, it didn’t turn out the way we expected it to be. The other part of the design was too close to the edge and too far from the other one – we both thought it’s goin’ to be a problem in the near future (i.e. drilling, soldering, etc.), so we agreed to repeat the process of preparing, designing, cutting excesses, etching, and soaking, all for the glory of our beloved project-to-be, a Professional Converter. However, we were not permitted to take home our project-making so we had no choice but to repeat the whole process on the next meeting come Tuesday a week after. üü
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| Cutting |
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| Cutting |
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| Cutting |
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| Traced design on masking tape; Set for soaking  Soaking |
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| PCB Design after excess masking tapes are removed |
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