My Homebrew ESR Meter

[Difficilus]

Glad to hear you're making progress Dana.

I'm hoping it's all a gentle ride down hill now, David.

I've attached a pic that was sent to me by another constructor of a recently built meter in a plastic project box. (The dial has not been calibrated yet).

Nice clean looking construction. I like the black material for the box.

As I've been making PCBs using the time consuming and sometimes inconsistent UV light box method for years, ......SNIP.....Hard to get consistent results with UV.

This is a bit of a surprise. Most of what I read led me to believe UV resist was the better way to get good results for a transfer. I didn't take up with UV because of the need for more specialized materials, initial set up costs, and the very real possibility that I would bork a process more complicated than printing and ironing. After all, any printing errors can go in the bin never to be seen by others, mistakes with toner comes off the PCB with acetone, and I have not burned a shirt or injured myself with the ironing for some time now.

I take your point about not wishing to risk magazine paper in your printer. ....SNIP.... Because printers' ink is used on that paper, it is colour fast, so it matters not that a page is covered in print - you don't need to find a blank piece. - I haven't tried it, but I can see the attraction.

I plan to use photo or glossy paper this first time out. There may be no cause for concern and there has been some discussion that the ironing for the PCB image transfer and then getting the paper off steps may be easier with the magazine or junk mail slick paper. I might go ahead and give it a try if my first attempts with glossy/photo paper doesn't turn out so great.

Good luck with the etchant - dont buy too much hydrogen peroxide or Langley will have you in their cross-hairs!!

Heh. Um....yup. It would be like:
Hey! You! Yeah you! Old guys...you with the peroxide bleached blonde hair....get in the black helicopters now!

Don't forget to 'flip' the image or you'll have a back to front PCB!

Heh. I could always make a Franken-smd ESR PCB with a tsps off/on switch instead of an spst on/off switch out of it.

Thanks David.

Dana Locke
Missouri, USA