making a PCB? (aluminum electrolisis)

[Nick_Black]

i know diffrent ways of etching out a PCB, but i actually want to make one from the ground up,

1,2 or 3 layers or so of epoxy on woven glass, and because I'm a cheapo I was thinking of using aluminum as a coating (insead of copper),and instead of using aluminum foil and sticking it on while the resin is still wet, I was wondering if there's a way to "plate" aluminum to the resin, because I know resin can be charged with a negative charge (static electricity works well to show that )

I was wondering if it's possible to put a positive charge on the aluminum and use electrolysis to coat the resin...

anyone know?

thxs.

Nick_Black

[crazybillybob]

You are pretty much going to need to build a vacuum arc deposition system.
By the time you do that you might as well use a PCB prototyping service (http://www.batchpcb.com/ is a good low cost prototyper...) Etching a single side PCB, at home is no big thing.... a Double sided at home is rough, more then that is nuts!

The easiest way to do a 3 or 4 layer board is to create 2, 2 layer boards and bond them together.

Once you find a way around the alignment issues you have with multi-layer board you have to find a way to make sure all the layers are electrically connected in production PCB this is done with VIAs. I've not found a good way to do this at home!

I'm not saying that you couldn't make this happen at home, I'm just telling you that it's not going to be an easy task, nor is it going to cost effective.


Good Luck!
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[Nick_Black]

thanks for the info making a vacuum arc deposition system DOES sound fun, however, ever a little bit of reading i think I'm much better off using tin foil and sticking it on while the resin is still tacky.

and also, I'm not worried about multiple layers, most of my circuits are usually designed to contain as few parts anyways, and any additional connections I'll just use a jumper wire.

cheers! and thxs

Nick_Black

[crazybillybob]

How are you going to Solder the middle 2 layers?
You can only apply heat to the top and bottom layers....

In a pro made board the Via's transfer the heat, as well as the solder trough.

Just trying to help you out...
I've done the very dense two layer homemade board......Screwed up too many times... so I gave up redesigned a slightly larger single layer board.... way easier assembly! and it worked first time!



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