[Poor Man's Boards]==================================================[BigGeezer]

I dont know if yall have heard about the DirectTV stuff that has been
going on. Well.. Short and Sweet.  People have been hacking the DirectTV
H-card for sometime now. They were finally able to stop the hacking about
3 months ago. A few people, use emulators to get free tv..  Circut 
Boards that plug into a computer and into the DSS irda to get a 
signal.. (These arent blocked by the way so if you use emulators.. you
still get free TV) It takes making 2 circuit boards.

So I headed  to the local Radio Shack and found out that it cost quite a
bit of money to make your own boards. That just wasnt going to do. So
after some investigation, and talking to a very *SMART* Electronics 
Engineer, I found out how to do it cheeper.. and have the equipment to
make circut boards for anything.  I'm not talking about the pref boards 
from radio shack.. I am talking printed circut boards.. just like you see
in all electrical devices. The focus of this article is Home Made Printed
Circut Boards.

The first thing you need, is supplies... I know what your thinking.. "Here
comes the expensive part". Your right.  But.. if you think a total 
investment of $40 dollars, is expensive, you really should find another
hobby anyways. Here we go.. the list:

1. Bubble Stone (the same size of CD cases. They are long and blue). You
can find these at pet stores, in the aquatics section.
2. 2 Empty CD cases
3. Air Pump (the same kind for a fish aquarium) bought from a fish store.
4. Tubing.. (Should come with the air pump)
5. Access to a laser printer.
6. Labels..  (you need the backing)
7. Mutriatic Acid (spelling..?) bought at any swimming pool store..  or
home depot.
8. Hydrogen Peroxide. bought at walmart for 87c for 1/4 gallon.
9. Copper clad board. Found at any electronic shop.
10. Silicone (Found at walmart auto parts)
11. A hot plate.  (the electrical kind or a skillet would do as well)
12. Finger Nail Polish remover (or acetone)

Putting it together.

1. Take the bubble stone with the 2 cd cases split apart. 

2. Connect the cd cases around the bubble stone with silicone.. around the
   part that produces the bubbles.

3. Take the air pump and connect it to the bubble stone.  There you 
   go.. you haveB your burner made.. simple wasnt it..?


Making the Circut Boards.

Ok.. you have your diagram of the Circuit, print it out on the laser
printer. On that copy, take the back of the label, clean it with the
Finger Nail Polish remover, and tape it to the printed part and reprint it
again, so the image is on the slick part. Now..put that aside for a
bit.  Turn your hot plate or skillet on, you can tell it is hot enough if
you spray some water on it and the water beads up. Now tape the slick
image printed part down on to the copper clad board.

Put the copper clad board on the hot plate.. and with a towel or pot 
holder layed on top.. with a piece of wood on top of that, and press down
for about 30 seconds.  After the 30 seconds, remove the board from the hot
surface and lay it aside for a few mins to cool down.  Once it is cooled
down, remove the paper. It will leave a perfect image of the circut on the
copper clad board.
 

Now the Burning process.

Fill your burner with half and half Mutraitic Acid and peroxide.  Turn
your pump on so it is producing bubbles. Put the copper Clad board inside
and watch the wonder of acid.  As you are watching.. it will remove the
copper around where the circuit was printed, but will leave the printed
part alone. After about 3 or 5 minutes, the solution will turn green from
the melted copper and you can see it is almost done. Once it is
done, remove the board and rinse it off under the sink. WHAMO! You have
yourself a nice printed circuit board. Just drill your holes where you
want your connections and solder.

I have been using this alot lately making chip programmers.. eeprom
burners, servo boards, etc. I am in the process of making a frequency
counter to use as a bug detector.. hehe.. I will be taking pictures of how
I did this.. and posting them.. I will get Digi to put the URL up on his
site, as soon as I get them done.