As makers, we must always all thank our fortunate stars that it’s now simple and reasonably priced to get skilled PCBs in simply a few weeks. However typically even that brief period of time is an excessive amount of of a wait while you need to shortly check a brand new design. Typically, you desire a functioning PCB the identical day and that’s the reason you might flip to the outdated DIY PCB fabrication strategies that have been in style among the many makers of yore. In the event you take the chemical route, then you may pace up the method by constructing this automated agitator designed by Chris Borge.
Not like PCB milling, which merely cuts away the copper cladding of a clean circuit board, chemical etching dissolves the copper. Earlier than beginning etching, you have to first apply a masks to guard the parts of the copper (traces and pads) that you just need to hold. 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 approach the entire unmasked copper.
It could actually take some time (usually hours) to dissolve the copper, however agitation will pace up the method. It’s like churning garments in soapy water, quite than letting them soak. As a result of guide agitation is boring and tiring, Borge designed this fundamental machine to do the work robotically.
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 elements for this mission are 3D-printable. Borge hasn’t performed 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 might 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 manage a servo motor that does the identical factor. Possibly that could be a frivolous use of a microcontroller, but it surely definitely simplifies the mechanical design. Both approach, it appears to work nice and now Borge can have PCBs prepared to check very quickly.