cleaning copper clad with home brewing chemicals.

[soundcollage]

i've been doing research on pcb cleaning to try and achieve better toner adhesion, and read about a process involving an alkaline clean for the grease then a acid clean for the copper oxide. this got me thinking about the PBW and star san i use for home brewing. has anyone tried using these? i will report back with some results when my press and peel arrives.

 

[JohnRoberts]

For home brewing sanitation I just use dilute chlorine (HCl?), it's cheaper than specialty cleaners and the microbes don't know the difference. .

To clean copper clad, steel wool worked well, maybe abrasive pot cleaners, but I haven't messed with that end of it for several decades

JR

 

[soundcollage]

i  had very promising results starting with an old crusty board that got wet at some point.  all of the board was cleaned (except a small area where water was sitting on it long enough for the oxide to etch in) by a soak in hot concentrated PBW, a rinse, a soak in hot concentrated star san and a wipe with a q tip. i rinsed the board and used an old scotchbrite on the area with the deep water mark then returned it to the acid solution for a little longer, then rinsed and dried. and skipped my usual acetone wipedown before transferring the toner.  i got great adhesion and a near perfect transfer with an old pnp pre printed piece i found laying around. i imagine using a newer scotchbrite pad during each step rather than just soaking, not skipping the final acetone wipedown, and having a freshly printed image on pnp will yield even better results.

 

[soundcollage]

http://rdchem.com/no-microetch-cleaning.html
this is what got me thinking.

 

[soundcollage]

another great transfer. i will continue to use this method.

 

[joaquins]

I'm using a laminator to do this, I got it a few weeks ago and seems to be rocking on, few mods, increased pressure, a bit more temp, a few degrees only so nothing to worry about. To clean them I just use fine steel wool, last try was with really nice boards which came pretty clean from the store, so I nearly scratched them and the transfer failed badly, not a bit of toner to the board, that happened with two boards, I give another scratch with the steel wool and the transfer was perfect, wasn't the dirt, just the cooper too smooth. The good thing about the laminator is the easy it is to repeat the process, may change a bit with the board size, but I only had problems with boards which take too long to go through the machine. I managed to make some nice 6mil traces/clearance and some 5 mil traces/clearance, I wouldn't trust the 5 mil clearance but all the other seems to work fine, where just small board to test that. I made a few with 10mil rules and not a single problem with them.

JS

 

[gyraf]

Good idea with the laminator!

And +1 for using fine steel wool for pre-etch cleaning.

Jakob E.

 

[firehazard]

Hi,

the model steam engine builders use citric acid to clean copper for the silver brazing process.

Take care.