Quote:
Originally Posted by Don Rotolo
Don't forget to try photo-sensitive boards (pre-coated or coat-yourself. This method has been most successful for me. I laser-print onto plain vellum (not clear plastic) and use that as my negative, which works just fine.
Also consider at least demonstrating the silkscreen method. I used this for a production run several years ago, and it worked great. Let me know if I can send you some raw boards for show & tell.
Lastly, don't forget the printed circuit board handbook. I have the 2nd edition; they're up to 4th now. Tremendously useful. |
Thanks, Don! We've got a silkscreen unit, which does work great particularly for "mass production" board runs and, of course, the photographic techniques work well too. We've even got access to CNC equipment so we could look in to just cutting out the traces with a nice fine bit, as well.
We've found that for the mass runs that we would have traditionally silk screened that it is now almost as cheap to contract that work out to a service provider. It certainly saves a lot of time for the teacher and makes doing two sided boards much less of a hassle.
One of the catches I face, however, is time. As our students are also learning how to teach power mechanics, wood, metal, and drafting, everything I add in to the curriculum means that something else has to come out. And unlike in high school where it is easy to cover some extra material after school, many of our students have committments to car pools, child care and other issues that don't usually affect high school students. We work them hard during the day, and load them up with homework, but do face some hard limits on cramming a huge amount of learning in to a two-year program.
But I think I might have convinced a few of them to come down to Seattle to check out the FRC event there on their spring break.
Jason