Drilling and troubleshooting

To complete the PCB process, the circuit board was fixed to a piece of wood or box. The holes on the circuit board was drilled (holes should be at least 0.1mm bigger than pins or wires) by using Pro'skit drill set. The drilling process is shown in figure below.

After complete drill the holes, the connection between the tracks must be checked and troubleshoot by using multimeter. It is useful to know the tracks is connect to each other or not. If there are no connection between the tracks, the jumper wire can be used to solve the problem. The checking and troubleshoot process is shown in figure below.

Etching process

Etching is a "subtractive" method used for the production of printed circuit boars (PCB). Acid is used to remove unwanted copper from the board. This is done by applying a "temporary mask" that protects the tracks from the acid and leaves the desired copper layer untouched on the PCB board. The equipment that used for this etching process are Ferric chloride liquid, plastic container and abrasive paper. The etching process are shown in figure below.

Added enough ferric chloride liquid at the bottom of a plastic container to cover the circuit board.

Put the board copper side up in the plastic container filled with ferric chloride liquid. Slowly shake the plastic container around 5-10 minutes.

It will be notice the copper begin to dissolve slowly.

This shake process will takes about 5-10 minutes  to make sure the unwanted copper off from the surface of the board.

After complete the procedures to etching the circuit board, the circuit board was washed using water.

At the same time, the circuit board must be scrubbed using abrasive paper to remove the unwanted toner.

The result after etching the board shown in figure below. 

Thicken the tracks on the circuit board

This procedure is important to make sure the tracks on the circuit board are connect with each other as designed and to make sure there are no problem occurs before start with etching process. This thicken process will touch it up with a permanent marker, though the permanent marker won't be as nice a mask as the real toner from the printer. Figure below shows the process to thicken the tracks on the circuit board. 

Before: 

During: 

After:

Produce the PCB circuit

The PCB design on the OHP paper will be affixed onto the copper board, the masking tape was used to fixed the design onto the copper board. The figure are shown below.

Then, the PCB was set on top of a cloth and the PCB will be heating by using dry iron. This is to make sure that the toner will melt off the paper, and stick onto the copper of the PCB. 

By referring figure above, the dry iron was pressed onto the circuit, and then pressing hard without moving the dry iron and hold the iron perfectly still for one minute and above and at the same time do not move the iron at all during this minute and push hard to make sure the toner will melt off the paper and stick onto the copper of the PCB. The result after iron the board shown in figure below. 

Equipment and tools used

Equipment and tools that used to produce the circuit. Below are the equipment and tools that are used.
1. Circuit board
2. Ferric chloride liquid
3. Multimark non-permanent marker
4. Abrasive paper
5. Masking tape
6. Dry iron
7. Pro'skit drill set

Below are the pictures of the equipment and tools that are used.

Print the PCB layout on the OHP paper (Overhead projector)

The design of a Printed Circuit Board (PCB) layout of the system was printed on the OHP paper. 

The picture of the PCB are shown below.

 

Figure: Printed mask on the OHP paper

                                              

                                                 Figure: Printed mask on the OHP paper