Etching enclosures

[Vince]

So I'm thinking of giving this a go. Can anyone recommend a good but cheap laser printer? Nothing fancy as I plan on simple black designs.

Cheers

[Milkit]

I've had reasonable results with the colour equivalent of THIS mate.  I'm sure there are better out there, but for getting your feet wet......  Can't go wrong at that price (but you'll probably need a mortgage for the toner)!  Be sure to check out some reviews first though, just in case it's a lemon!  

[Vince]

I was looking at that one. I saw a guy using an older version for pcb's. A lot of people say to stay away from brother printers as the toner doesn't transfer well at all so I might give the Samsung a go...

Cheers dude ;o)

[GoranP]

What little etching I did, it was always on a HP printer with genuine HP toner (at work, naturally ) so I'm not much help when it comes to budget alternatives.

Worked fine, though...

[dexxyy]

I use a samsung ml1860 (now discontinued) and it works great for pcbs, I`ve had some good results with enclosures but it`s really down to the prepping. You really need to sand the box as flat as poss cos if the iron aint flat against it then you wont get a good transfer. My nephew is now mounting his pots to the backplate as he finds it a lot easier to get flat as it is flatter to start with, he uses black screws and incorporates them into the design. Buy a Sun on sunday, the glossy mag that comes with it (fabulous) is great for toner transfer

[Vince]

Thats a great idea about mounting the pots to the back. I imagine that would look really good. I don't mind it not being perfect as I quite like the rustic, old look. I bit the bullet and got a Samsung ML-2165W so fingers crossed.

I've read about people using glossy photo paper and some others using press n peel paper... any suggestions on paper would be welcome

Cheers

[dexxyy]

I use glossy mag paper all the time with no issues, press n peel is great but it aint cheap, if you try pnp then i`ve found that you need to have enough designs made up to fill a sheet as when you print on it the heat from the printer makes it curl a bit and it`s quite hard to feed it back into the printer again. with glossy mag paper it doesn`t matter how many times you fuck up cos it costs next to nowt and is easy sourced.

[Vince]

You mean, you iron on pictures from glossy mags? that's a good idea as well. I guess standard photo paper would be ok for my own designs. Especially photo sized pieces so I can just print once on it and not waste the rest of an A4 sheet.

[dexxyy]

No, print onto the magazine paper, ironing will only transfer the toner not the magazine photos, it works better than photo paper as it doesn`t leave as much residue.

[Vince]

I got what you meant after reading up..lol... I have some photo paper and I'll grab a couple of glossy mags and try those too.

Thanks for tips mate...

[GoranP]

I've tried all paper under the sun and only pnp blue would stick to aluminum... And I've wetsanded the enclosure down to 1600 so it's been prepped plenty.

That's pretty much why I gave up on etching enclosures, pnp is expensive and even that isn't 100% me-proof method.

[Vince]

Things like this usually go arse about face for me too, Goran. Either way, I'll have a laser printer and just stick to decals.....

[Vince]

Absolute pants!... Tried magazine paper and photo. The toner stuck pretty well but the prep work and farting about just doesn't warrant the results in my opinion.... Hammerite straight over it!..

Oh well, had a try... I'll do some PCB's to use up the Ferric Chloride....

[GoranP]

My thoughts exactly!

Works fine for pcbs but I'm even skipping on that because acids and small kids in the house just don't mix.
If I want an one-off I'll do a vero, otherwise get pcbs fabbed in China.

I've bought some acrylic paint in a tube from a hobby store yesterday, I'll grab a brush, take it to the enclosure and see what comes of it.

[Jederino]

Can't remember where I saw the thread, but a safer alternative to etching PCB's is with vinegar and hydrogen peroxide.  Takes a bit longer, but the results look good.  I got kids too, little ones at that, so I might try it.  Not sure about using it on enclosures, though.

Great tip on mag paper.  Will have to try that.

[Vince]

I saw a video about that, Jederino. Looks like an interesting alternative. I have a little boy too but I have a top cupboard with a bolt on that he has no way of accessing. I'm still nervous about having chemicals in the house though so I might consider the vinegar method when my ferric acid runs out....

[GoranP]

I'm not really worried about the kid reaching the materials (because it's nigh impossible) but I do worry about using them when the kid is running around and bumping into me or climbing my work area. And if I wait until the kid is off to sleep it's almost midnight and I wouldn't trust myself with making tea, let alone fumbling around with harmful smelly chemicals.

Vinegar may just be the ticket, I'm gonna try it out sometimes...

[Vince]

Well my first PCB etch came out perfect... Just a Fuzz face one I started with. All working perfectly....I used and old magazine page to print the transfer on...

[Jederino]

Found what I had seen on the vinegar method, over at madbean

http://www.madbeanpedals.com/forum/index.php?topic=10148.0