Photos on Printed Circuit Boards?

htmlguru4242 · Aug 23, 2005

While I'm working on the X-Ray film photography idea, I had another crazy idea. Could prints be made on light-etched printed circuit boards?

I'm not sure if this process can render continuous tones, but it could be fun to play with. Any ideas / suggestions / rants / experiences

mikewhi · Aug 23, 2005

htmlguru4242 said:
While I'm working on the X-Ray film photography idea, I had another crazy idea. Could prints be made on light-etched printed circuit boards?

I'm not sure if this process can render continuous tones, but it could be fun to play with. Any ideas / suggestions / rants / experiences

Isn't this how Intel makes their microprocessors?

-Mike

glbeas · Aug 23, 2005

I would think the image would have to be rendered as a halftone to work on the copper resist. I wonder if the phenolic support can be had in different colors?

htmlguru4242 · Aug 23, 2005

Mike - intel uses a type of photolithography to make microprocessors, i think, which is somewhat similar...

And i do agree with the halftoning (or mezzotint) - i like the different colored bases idea...

127 · Aug 24, 2005

Small scale PCB's are more or less made by contact printing with UV light.
Just get a hobbyiest PCB etching kit.

As mentioned you'd probably need a halftone'd image - etching away half the copper would still leave half the copper which would of course still look like copper! You might get some texture which might darken the mid-tones a little, but probably pretty limited, and difficult to control.

Go for it

Ian

WarEaglemtn · Aug 27, 2005

Liquid light type of emulsions painted on circuit boards allows you to do enlargements from your negatives on them. Works very well.

Donald Qualls · Aug 27, 2005

Hmmm. There's an interesting juxtaposition, potentially.

First, coat the copper board with photoresist. Then, coat over that with Liquid Light or similar liquid emulsion; expose, develop, fix normally (those chemicals should have little or no effect on the photoresist underneath the gelatin). Now, expose the photoresist to UV (sunlight, for instance) as you normally would (through the liquid emulsion's image). Wash off the liquid emulsion with chlorine bleach, and process the exposed photoresist as usual, then etch the board.

You might need a half-toned image or a very grainy film to get a suitable conveyance of intermediate tones on the copper, but it might well allow making the etched-copper images from a small original negative without making an interpositive/internegative. And on a white or light board base, the copper could be blackened chemically after processing to give a direct positive from the liquid emulsion's positive image, if desired. Heck, this could even permit in-camera, one-of-a-kind images directly on copper board...

glbeas · Aug 27, 2005

Take this a step further Donald and instead of using an etchant use silver nitrate or some other blackening process. Wash the resist and you will have a black image on copper. A coat of clear urethane or other durable protection to prevent oxidation and you're done. If the nitrate leaves a good enough deposit of silver to polish up shiny bright thats even better.

Donald Qualls · Aug 28, 2005

All depends what you want, Gary. Copper board is one thing, costwise, but silver nitrate solution is quite another, especially when the copper contamination of the working solution means you'll be discarding the whole lot after developing a few plates. OTOH, you could use this method to apply a plating to the copper for a different effect on a dark board base.

Lots of options available here. Anyone know how much copper board etching kits are running these days?

glbeas · Aug 28, 2005

Radio shack carries a kit with two 3x4 1/2 inch boards and the etchant and a few other items to make your circuit board for about $15. They don't carry any photosensitive resist. This place does though (quick search)

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Donald Qualls · Aug 30, 2005

Ummmm....

Yike.

I wonder if you could accomplish the same thing by attaching copper foil to some surface? The photoresist and etchant aren't terrible, it's the coated boards that cost (I think). Copper foil (from the craft store, like Hobby Lobby) is something like $20 for a roll, 8 or 10 inches wide and several feet long.

Well... if nothing else, you could use the photoresist with a blackening, instead of etching agent, and print black on copper (which would give a direct positive) directly on the foil. That'd be a lot cheaper...

numnutz · Sep 4, 2005

Hi Newbie here first post...

In the mid 1970's a company in the UK called Spicers did supply photographs from you own B&W negatives printed on copper clad board. It was a halftone reproduction sized at around 10 x 8 inches in a black and gold frame. I can't remember the price off hand but I remember thinking it was expensive. In the studio where I worked we sold a few but I always thought it was expensive rubbish.

But another thought - Could these Printed circuit boards be used for Daguerreotypes the copper is fairly thin but AFAIAA there is little or no etch effect?

Also I would think that they could be used for etching and ink printing in small sizes.

nn

Donald Qualls · Sep 5, 2005

numnutz said:
But another thought - Could these Printed circuit boards be used for Daguerreotypes the copper is fairly thin but AFAIAA there is little or no etch effect?

One would have to silver plate over the copper. Once that's done, the silver must be burnished and polished before sensitizing, so that a chemically pure silver surface is presented to the halogen vapors, and here is where a solid copper plate has the advantage in traditional Dags -- it can be bent, and commonly is, all four corners bent back a little, which makes the front surface convex enough that the leather burnishers won't hang on the edges of the plate, which both hinders burnishing and can damage the leather.

I've looked at an alternate form of Dag where the whole burnishing step would be effectively bypassed, going directly from chemical coating of the silver to sensitizing, but I don't know that this could be done on copper (my plan was to coat on glass, using telescope making methods). I don't know what method was used to put silver on the copper in the 1830s; I'm pretty sure it wasn't the same used to silver glass, as the silver solution would react with the copper. It's not likely to be a simple replacement, as there is quite a lot of etching of the copper with that reaciont and most of the silver comes out of solution as flocks or extremely fine suspended grains, rather than as a coating on the copper, in my high school chemistry experience.

Photos on Printed Circuit Boards?

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