My Etching Journey
 
Hmmmmmmm.........
Monday, February 2, 2009
hmmmmmmmm....
 
Ok, I had great plans for the experiment with .08, .16 and .25 amps settings to see the effect on corrosion at the interface of the photo-resist and the etched area.
 
Well, a couple of things are obvious after the first experiment at .08 amps:
 
  1. •  It will take forever to etch to any depth at this current so it doesn’t really matter how good the resulting product is.

  2. •  All of the plates I prepared had issues with the adherence of the puretch film.  These plates were going no where as the film was releasing in spots even before the current was turned on.

  3. •   I am either preparing my plates poorly or Puretch is just not the ground medium for this type of work.  Maybe the ground is releasing prematurely under etching conditions or I am contributing to the adherence problem from step one.  

  4. •    Alas, I must seek a more robust  resist as I can’t figure out how to consistently apply Puretch or it is simply not the right ground for electro-etching.

    I have a laser printer and I also have a very good dry mount press, so I am going to explore the pnp blue resist media.  In all fairness to Puretch, I will prepare extra plates the same way for the pnp blue resist and run them both.  

    For the record, I:
  5. •  scour the copper plates with a gritty cleaner
  6. •  degrease using Purple Power
  7. •  brighten using salt and vinegar