Etching Printed Circuit Boards the Gootee Way

CS 441 Lecture, Dr. Lawlor

Semiconductor manufacturing is just a long series of deposit/mask/etch cycles, building up the parts of the circuit on a piece of silicon.

This is the "Gootee method" for garage printed circuit board (PCB) manufacturing.  It uses an ordinary laser printout as an acid-etch mask on a copper-clad fiberglass board.  It takes maybe half an hour to prepare a circuit board this way, plus a little more time to drill holes and solder on components. (This information is FYI on a personal hobby of mine--it will not appear on the test!)

Prepare the Mask

Here are a few of my PCB masks: (PNG image) (vector SVG image).
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Mask Off Your Copper-Clad Board With Toner

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Etch Away Unmasked Copper With Acid

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Mount Components

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