Wow, it's been about 2 weeks since my last update. During that time, I've made so many attempts at making the circuit board with varying degrees of failure. I am so close now. So, here's what I've done.

First I started by cutting the board out. I found out later that you should leave a little margin, but it seems that this would work well for aligning the 2 sides.

I originally started out printing my design onto some cardstock with a shiny side like I've done before. So far everything was going as planned. Then I ironed the pattern on like before, but it wouldn't take. After about 6-7 tries with 2 irons, I gave up with that method.

I did some internet searching and came up with this excellent instructable. I got some parchment paper, hydrochloric acid, a pyrex dish, and a laminator from harbor freight. I picked up a face mask for fumes just in case while I was at it.

So next, I went and tried to print the pattern on the parchment paper. No go. It failed consistently every time. Apparently the HP Laserjet 4100 does not work with this. After trying it a number of time, I broke the fuser, putting the printer completely out of commission.

So I needed a new printer. I looked up the one in the instructable and saw that it was not only very economically price, but on sale for a couple more days! So I went ahead and got that, figuring I could always return it if it didn't work for my needs. I went and tested it and it did it almost perfectly. It kept coming out messed up on the right side. So I made it so the design printed on the left and it now comes out perfect everytime.

Now that I had it printing on the parchment paper, I tried ironing it and laminating it. With the iron, it kept either not adhering to the board or coming out smudged. Usually both. With the laminator it wasn't adhering to it.

I took a break for a few days and then did some internet searching to see if I could find an answer. I came across an article for mounting a dimmer switch on my laminator in order to slow it down. I went out and bought a dimmer switch and started hacking it apart. Even though it says the dremel didn't work well on the aluminum, I had bought some reinforced cutting wheels and those worked excellently. I only wore it down about an eighth of an inch. My dimmer switch was bigger than the one in the article, so I had to do some additional modifications. I had a circuit board inside. One of the things I had to do was narrow it down. I ended up desoldering the 2 components on the board and relocating them. I had to use some wire solder to the components' ends. On one part, I had to create a new hole, so I scraped the solder mask off with an exacto knife and drilled a hole nearby. Using some soldering flux so that it would stick, I solder it onto the scraped off part. I then was able to cut about a quarter inch off the circuit board. I also lost the metal contact that the dimmer moved, so I had to fabricate something out of some spring steel, which turned out very nice. I got it in there and used a couple screws to hold it against the front. Unlike the dimmer in the article, I trimmed it up enough so that I didn't have to cut off a wall or use epoxy, so I can remove if necessary. Overall, it worked nicely on the first try and the know was mounted in the perfect place.

That took me a couple of days, which I just finished yesterday. So, back to the main project. I tried it out today and it sort of worked. I mean the laminator itself worked, but everytime I tried putting it on the board, the board moved when it got sandwiched between the rollers. However, even though it wasn't lined up, the toner did transfer really nicely. The next thing I tried was using some doublesided foam tape to try and hold it in place, but the board moved anyways. My next thing to try is I took the cardboard back of a notepad and cut out a board sized hole. I'm going to try taping the parchment paper directly to it and hope that holds it in place.

I'll try again a little later and see if that works. I still need to make the tinning solution, which I guess takes a while.

Also, I came across a nice instructable on putting a soldermask on that would work well from home. I priced out the materials needed to make this, and it came out to about $80. It would however, yield many boards with the supplies you would get. The result is so much easier and nicer than the spray paint method I used before. I probably wont do it for this circuit board, but maybe for the next project.

Another option that I thought of, which would probably work with items I have on hand is to take the aluminum from a soda pop can and flatten it out with something like the laminator. Then you sand it really well to get the coating off and use the toner transfer method to put a mask on that only exposes where the solder pads are with the rest being the resist. Then you put it in a 50% solution of HCl and Hydrogen Peroxide to etch it. Remember to always add the acid to the peroxide and never the other way around. They will react and as you add them together, you want the peroxide to be in greater quantity than the acid until fully dilluted. So, you etch the holes where the solder pads go until you have holes in the metal. Clean it off really well and then lay it on the circuit board where you are applying the solder mask. Get some vasoline out and wipe it on so that it goes through the holes and sovers the pads on the circuit board. Then take your favorite color of hobby spray paint and spray it on the board. Give it time to fully dry and then you can wipe off the vasoline. I've not actually tried this out though, so I may be totally off or the results may be less than ideal.

I also came across a nice idea for adding a silkscreen to the board. Basically, you use the toner transfer on the completed board to put your words on, throw it in a toaster over, then use a white crayon over it while it's still warm.

So I've been quite busy as you can tell by my longest post ever.