Copper Chloride Pcb Etching

When exhausted it can be revived by adding hydrogen peroxide or by bubbling air through it.

Copper chloride pcb etching. Do a simple google search for pcb etchant part number. Luckily we can whip up our own etchant at home with everyday chemicals. Better yet our new etchant will turn an eerie green color rather than the dull. In this issue we show you how to etch a pcb at home using the toner transfer method and ferric chloride etchant.

Again if using our contactetch it might be a bit dumb to buy that much etchant when you use so little per etch. During it s first phase it gives off chlorine gas in quantities that coulld be dangerous in small spaces ventilate well. Typical solutions are 1 part fecl 3 to 1 part water and 1 part nitric to 3 parts water. The normal ferric chloride solution works well but can be expensive and leaves permanent stains.

Etching your own circuit boards is tons of fun but etching requires strong chemicals to dissolve the copper plating on blank circuit boards. The etching process is known as biting see also spit. Of the several types of etchant chemistries the hobbyist can choose acid cupric chloride also called acid copper ii chloride or just cupric chloride is one of the more interesting types since it has the ability to be regenerated or replenished without having to throw away the solution this is the reason why cupric chloride is one of two main etchants widely used by pcb fabricators. The strength of the acid determines the speed of the etching process.

Cucl2 cu 2 cucl. To get rid of undesired copper from copper clad substrates to form electronic circuits two methods are discussed. Ferric chloride may be used for etching copper or zinc plates whereas nitric acid may be used for etching zinc or steel plates. In the mechanical etching a special cutter and a machine tool are used to get rid of a narrow strip of copper from the boundary of each pad and trace.

In doing this the. Prices are pretty competitive. Pcb is an acronym that stands for printed circuit board that helps to connect active passive electronic components with pads tracks and lines incorporated on a laminated copper sheet. That s the end etchant.

They sell a pint for 6 a quart for 10 and a gallon for 35. According to the real elliot s instructable titled stop using ferric chloride etchant. This company sells direct. If you have been following our how to design a pcb using eagle series in issue 34 and issue 35 you would have designed a square wave generator circuit board that you could send off to a circuit board manufacturer this tutorial uses the same square wave generator circuit board.

After you ve dissolved a lot of copper into the solution and used up all the peroxide the copper chloride does most of the etching for you. Cuppric chloride cucl2 h2o 2 is another pcb etchant that is actually made by etching copper in a mixture of hcl and h2o2. Eventually you etch so much that you convert all the cucl2 into cucl which doesn t dissolve copper and is a yucky brown color.