[Swansea Hackspace] Anyone know of laser cuttable vinyl-like material?

[Alan Cox]

On Wed, 11 Oct 2017 11:39:08 +0000
Andy Rush <Andymrush at live.co.uk> wrote:

> I've got an etching project that needs some very small (under 1" square), detailed resists made for it. normally, I'd go for the vinyl cutter, but the level of detail is smaller than what I know the vinyl cutter can handle. The laser cutter would be the ideal tool to make this, but you can't put vinyl in the laser cutter because of the fumes. Does anyone know of a material that's got similar properties to vinyl (ie: waterproof, self adhesive backing, non conductive) but that can be safely put into the laser cutter without re-enacting the chemical warfare of WWI?

What are you trying to etch ? If it's metal you can make resists using a
laser-printer providing your accuracy constraints are not too tight.
Beyond that you either need to do the old fashioned analogue photo stuff,
or use someone who has the right kind of magic printers to print
photo-masks at 3000dpi+.

For laser the basic idea is to print with really glossy paper, maximum
toner levels. Let it cool. Align it with the metal and get it down
flat, then iron it for a few minutes, Let it cool again and dump it in
water until the paper can be removed leaving the toner stuck on the PCB.
Etch that and then nail varnish remover (acetone) will clean off the
toner.

For double sided make it bigger than the PCB, print a pair of accurate
fold lines for the material thickness. Fold (accurately) and wrap around
the board.

A good laser printer and those sheets for slides (don't use inkjet ones
they'll melt in the printer!) can also be used as low grade traditional
photoresist masks.

There are some other semi-insane approaches - the good vinyl cutters are
also plotters so you can put a pen in them (for testing usually). However
you can also put a flat sheet of metal or PCB in one with suitable
support and swap the pen for one of those pcb hand drawing pens....

I do a fair bit of metal etching but I do it all via PPD in Scotland the
traditional way. The price they charge versus the low quality/pain in the
arse chemical processing simply made doing it by hand not worth it.

Alan