This was my first try developing my own pcb with the toner transfer method. I did this project many years back but it works perfectly to this day.
It filters an audio signal and drives led strips so they pulsate to the beat of a song.
this post was submitted on 24 Oct 2024
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I’m assuming you’re not super familiar with PCB fabrication? The toner transfer is a way to get small, repeatable, and precise definition of the component pads and traces - at home - without needing the expensive industrial machinery that fab houses have.
The toner ’print’ is a negative image, placed on a sheet of copper mounted to (usually) fiberglass. Much like masking off areas when painting, the ‘print’ protects the copper surface in select areas you want to keep safe when the whole board goes into the acid bath to dissolve the unprotected copper - leaving copper only where your ‘print’ was, and hopefully no shorts/grounds.
Definitely cool to have the ability to DIY fine pitch if you’re manually mounting SMT components or want higher board density, beats out the hand drawn permanent marker lines I’ve done in the past 😅