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PCB ink jet printer hack Hacking an ink jet printer to print on PCB copper clad board |
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I have been cutting PC boards on my CNC machine for quite a while, but it's a ton of work It takes a long time to do the CAD and CAM designs and then cut the boards Expensive 1/32" bits that break easily are a bummer The bits clog up as they cut and then the cut quality sucks. I was looking for a way to make PC boards faster. I had experimented with some Pre sensitized copper board using a positive mask printed on clear material. That method was ok, but it involves several steps, and the board is expensive. I had also read about people using laser printers to make iron on transfers. I don't have a laser printer and so I dismissed that method. Then I read about people using ink jet printers to print directly onto regular copper clad board. You spray on the ink which is the resist and then remove the copper with regular Ferric chloride etchant. The board has to be pre heated so that the ink spray on nice and clean Then you have to use some heat to bake the ink dry So, now I am hacking an ink jet printer to be able to print directly onto copper clad board. You have to use pigment based inks, you cannot use dye based inks because they don't spray right And dye based inks are not tough enough to stand up to etching. The printer you use has to be able to squirt pigment based inks Seems that many Epson printers are able to shoot pigment inks. Yellow and Magenta Mis pro pigment inks have been found to be the best inks to spray. This place sells the Mis Pro ink for Epson's http://www.inksupply.com/index.cfm Using spongless cartridges with reset chips that you can refill seems to be the way to go The site above sells all of that. There's lot of info on the web about people hacking ink jet printers and so I set out to do one myself. I grabbed a cheap Epson C84 printer off ebay for $9.00 It was actually new but the guy could not get the print head unclogged. I can fix that later with some special ink jet head cleaner I have. (I hope) Here's are some of the pages on the web that I found useful on printer hacks This page has tiny pictures, but lots of great info and links http://techref.massmind.org/techref/pcb/etch/c84-st.htm This thread is huge with many good pics and lots of info http://www.cnczone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=30951 |
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| A stock Epson C84 printer | Here's a shot of all the junk I removed from the printer |
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The first thing I needed to do after tearing
the printer down to bare bones is to raise up
the print head. In order to print on copper clad PC board, which is thicker than paper, you need to raise up the print head. I installed a couple frame supports on both sides of the printer frame before doing any cutting. Then I removed the supports and cut the metal frame The cuts are on the other side of the frame supports. Some printers have the ability to raise up the print head, which would avoid the cutting I had to do. |
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This shot shows the very small area I had to
cut on the motor side of the frame I also bent over that metal piece where it says Bend Here I did that so I would have some place to attach my frame support |
This side has a much longer cut You have to cut around the corner above the white plastic drive wheel I used a Dremel tool with a fiber cut off disk to make the cuts Not super pretty to look at, but it works. |
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| Front view | Rear view |
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| Click play to watch a movie of the printer firing up |
Here's a shot of the ink, the chip resetter
and two of the cartridges The cartridges do not have sponges so they hold more. Also, the chips can be reset after you refill them |
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This page is a Work in
progress That's as far as I am in my printer hack. The next step will be to make a guide/feed bed so that the board feeds into the printer in a straight line I am still waiting for another couple empty cartridges to show up before I can fire up and do a test print. The printer only came with a couple black ink cartridges. I cannot do any test until all four ink cartridges are in place and full. I will be using yellow in the yellow cartridge and magenta in the Magenta and Cyan cartridges. Supposedly, this give the best results if you print black, matte and photo quality. All 3 of the colored ink cartridges get used to make black. Cyan will squirt Magenta That's the plan so far, more to come |
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