How to make a Printed Circuit Board at Home

What is a Printed Circuit Board?

A PCB is a piece of dielectric material with at least one layer of conductive tracks. It may look really complicated, but they're actually pretty simple. There are a bunch of tiny copper wires, sandwiched in between multiple layers of fiberglass or on a piece of fiberglass. Now the wires are there to connect all the various integrated circuits and other electronic components in an organized, repeatable way to make up an electronic circuit. It is used to mechanically support and electrically connect electronic components using conductive pathways, tracks or signal traces etched from copper sheets laminated onto a non-conductive board.

So how to make a home made PCB?

Step 1: Designing your PCB Layout

If you already have a PCB layout then there's no problem you can just skip this step, but you can make your own PCB layout by using a PCB designing software. For me the best PCB board design software is Sprint Layout 06, but for people who are looking for a less complicated software can use MS Word in combination with MS Paint. You just have to be sure about the dimensions of the PCB layout.

Step 2: Printing Your PCB Layout

For printing the layout of the PCB, you need a Laser printer. The cartridge of the printer should be new, preferably not refilled in. You have to print the layout on photo paper or on pages from glossy magazines. I usually print it on photo paper, as it’s cheap if you buy in bulk.

Step 3: Cutting the copper clad board

Cut the copper board according to the size of the layout using a hacksaw or a cutter.

Next, rub the copper side of the PCB using steel wool to remove the oxide layer.

STEP 4: Transferring the PCB Print onto the Copper Clad board

Cut the pcb layout and place it on the Copper Clad board and make sure it’s aligned correctly along the borders of the printed layout and use tape to hold the board and the printed paper in the correct position.

Now set your iron’s temperature to maximum and iron out the PCB layout to the Copper Clad board.

The key here is to apply uniform pressure. Now what happens here is that the heat from the iron transfers the ink printed on the glossy paper to the copper plate.

After you iron the copper clad board, place the PCB in water for about 2 to 3 minutes to dissolve the Paper Now you can remove the paper gently.

It should look something like this

STEP 5: Etching the PCB

Now we will be etching the PCB i.e. we will be removing the copper using some chemicals. There are many recipes online to etch copper. You can use Fecl3 to etch copper, but I will be using 100 ml of hydrogen peroxide, 30g of Citric acid and 5g of salt which is the safest and the easiest to method to etch copper.

If you warm it up, the reaction process will be a lot quicker.

Wollah! Your PCB is etched! Now remove the ink using steel wool and move to the next step.

STEP 6: Drilling Holes

Now you just have to drill holes using your drill or Dremel.

STEP 7: Tinning the PCB (optional)

Apply flux.

And tin the copper tracks with solder, and finally your super cool circuit board will be ready!