★★ PCB Preparation: Designing ★★

2^nd Day dated September 8, 2011 (Thu)

A. Tools and Things Needed (In Order of Appearance – apay movie? Haha)

Ø  PCB (2"x3")

Ø  sand paper

Ø  eraser

Ø  carbon paper

Ø  masking tape

Ø  Scotch tape

Ø  pen/pencil    

Ø  cutter

Ø  gloves

Ø  container/basin (for soaking)

Ø  ferric chloride

Ø  hand drill

B. Preparatory for Preparing (Redundant) the PCB for Designing and Etching

Using a sand paper (liha in tagalog), we smoothened the edges of the printed circuit board then we erased – using an eraser of course – unwanted marks and spots on the solder side of the PCB. Erasing wasn’t just about erasing the unnecessary spots on the solder side, erasing was also about revealing the shining, shimmering ★★ white-gold-ish part of the solder side (sounds so maarte, right?). ;P

C.  PCB Designing

Ma’am Arrianne gave us a design to PATTERNIZE (Is there even a word?) our PCB’s design with. The design was a photocopy from a certain book or whatever. The problem was how to transfer the design from the paper to the PCB. Easy as pie. Of course with our instructor’s instructions, it wasn’t a big problem. What we did was, I first covered the whole part of the solder side of the PCB. We both had to make sure there were no airspaces or gaps between the masking tape and the PCB ‘coz there could have been a problem if there were, and that could have been about the ferric chloride eating (as in literally eating!) some parts of the copper side which was not supposed to be that way. Then, Julius made another layer on top of the masking tape thru the use of the carbon paper this time, and of course the photocopied design was put on top of the carbon paper. We taped the carbon paper then, the design, on the PCB so it would stay on place and undoubtedly, it would be very inconvenient not to do so. He traced the outline of the design using a pencil, he said he didn’t want to miss anything, so he traced carefully, he traced and traced and traced and then pooofff – the outline was there on the masking tape when we removed the carbon paper and the design. It was awesome, it was like, …urrgh!! üü

Smoothening

                                                       

Erasing Dirts

Putting Masking Tape

 

Carbon paper was sandwiched bet. the
photocopied design and the PCB

Tracing

Tracing

Traced design on masking
tape on top of PCB