Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Semi successful copper deposit on curved plastic

By following the Popular Mechanics article I was able to successfully deposit copper onto a film canister. There is still significant issues with the technique that will need resolving before the technique is viable for depositing copper for PCBs.

The process is shown below:


Melting candle to get paraffin for coating plastic


Coated film canister allowed to dry


Mixing carbon powder with water to a paste consistency for coating


Brushing canister with dry powder for base layer


Coating canister in carbon paste


Mixing in CuSO4 crystals


Canister connected to electrodes and submerged in solution




The biggest issues with the technique is that there can only be so much copper suspended in solution, and once that copper has been pulled out of solution and deposited, there is no copper left. I need to find a way to add copper to the solution at the same rate that it is pulled out of solution.

The other issue is that while the paraffin provides a good surface for coating, it is also a very weak wax. After a short time the deposited copper layer flakes off the plastic, which would be completely unsuitable for making a PCB. Also I am concerned what would happen to the wax later in the PCB process where acid is used to etch away the copper.

Tags: arduino_grapher pcb electronics

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