On Tue, May 24, 2011 at 10:48 PM, Denny Esterline wro= te: > > [..] and a few dollars and you get boards in a > few days, awesome! I didn't have to spend an hour trying to get my printe= r > to feed a page out of some magazine, and trying to get the two layers to > line up on opposite sides of the board and another hour breathing etchant > fumes and then lacquer thinner to remove the toner, and two hours squinti= ng > at the drill press. Wow, life is easy!! > Sounds like a fairy tale :) Except for the "few dollars" part. More like $100 including shipping and everything. Not to mention the wait time. Also, ferric chloride doesn't emit too much nasty vapour. If you're worried about that, use a dollar store lunch box and etch under the kitchen stove "fume hood". Also, as someone else said, label backing paper is the way to go. I agree. As for alignment, what I do is print both layers with markings where I drill holes. Then line up the holes with a BBQ skewer or something. Worked perfectly. Took about two seconds. For me the DIP carbide bits didn'= t break at all, and I drilled at low speed with a Dremel by hand. It took les= s than a second per hole. As for removing the toner, I used 70% isopropyl alcohol under the kitchen fume hood and it worked like a charm. Steel wool was also used. And TWO hours under the drill press? Seriously!? The only holes I needed to drill were DIP through holes and smaller ones where the vias went. The DIP holes were hollow in the center and the bit aligned itself instantly. Very quick to drill. Drilling took like 5 minutes for a decent sized development board. The via holes were a little tougher if I wanted small vias, but still very easy. I do not agree with your hour numbers. I don't understand why it took you so much time. --=20 http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist .