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Make Your Own PCB
  1. Making Your Own Printed Circuit Board - An Overview, part 1
  2. Making Your Own Printed Circuit Board - An Overview, part 2

Making Your Own Printed Circuit Board – An Overview, part 2

In the first part of this article, we covered the extensive subject of imaging a design onto a blank board and the best way to etch that board. After completing these steps, you will have a PCB almost ready for assembly. I will now explain the remaining steps. Some are essential and some not so much. As usual, each has their own set of problems to overcome.

Drilling

Now that you have a nice shiny PCB with your traces and pads imprinted on it, you need to drill the holes for thru-hole components and vias. The easiest way to do this is with a desktop drill press. Since I don’t have a dedicated PCB fabrication setup, I found another easy method for drilling holes at home. Harbor freight sells a 12v powered Dremel-type tool. While this tool is way under-powered for most tasks, it turns out to be a virtue when drilling small PCB holes. I simply chuck up a #60 bit and the hole already etched in the copper pad provides a nice indentation to hold the bit steady. The low power prevents the drill from getting squirrelly and jumping out of the indentation. You can probably get similar … Read the rest

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Make Your Own Stereo Microscope – On the Cheap!

Do you have an old telephoto lens lying around that you can’t use anymore? If you add an inexpensive pair of binoculars and a couple of prisms, you can make your own zoomable stereo microscope. This article tells how – http://www.funsci.com/fun3_en/uzoom/uzoom.htm

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