Make your own PCB with a sharpie!

Make your own PCB with a sharpie!
You do not need a fancy milling machine, laser etcher or to send of your CAD designs to the far east. Yes you! YOU! Can make your own PCBs with the aid of a sharpie! (and a few more bits - like ferric chloride and a drill!). But that's it, no fancy CAD, just a steady hand.

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Thanks you lovely people, and keep on tinkering!

Youtube Chapters
0:00 Introduction

[brianterry]

Now here is a man not afraid to make a mistake. Actually kind of refreshing to watch. Not in the sense of getting joy from other people's mistakes, but just the honesty and the "no f's given" attitude. This was my first video to watch from this channel, but I will be back. It'll give me somebody to watch beside that big-handed bloke out on the Isle of Man.

[schneidp]

Thanks for not reshooting to make it perfect. We all benefited more from seeing the mistakes. I'm sure the mirror image problem has bitten a few people. You made this look so simple that I now HAVE to do it on my next project. Thanks!

[BurkenProductions]

You should use a punch and hammer to punch where the hole should be drilled, that way the drill won't slip and drill somewhere else on the board

[tedbastwock]

This is hands down the BEST diy pcb method on youtube. Internet at its best here.

[minecraftbssshorts]

16:10, I learnt it a difficult way. Once when I was carrying ferric chloride in my back pack, it spell all over and stained me books, my dress and everything in my bag.

[sjm]

Used to do this ages ago but it's been quite a few years since I broke out the home etch box. Not particularly useful for most of what I do nowadays though with how small and tightly packed components have gotten, but still have good memories of drawing and etching my own boards at home.

[pileofstuff]

It's been a while. Back in the day I went through a couple of Radio Shack PCB kits. They had a felt tip pen, but I preferred to use the dry transfers that came in the kit - pre-drawn IC footprints and nice smooth radius curved traces.

[tedbastwock]

This video deserves 2M views by now. Length of vid probably hurt it in the algo. Man shared mistakes, but they are not mistakes of the process, which is the main focus of the video. Thanks for sharing. Damned YT algo, I almost didnt watch it, glad I did. Absolute best of more than a dozen diy pcb vid I watched, and def more useful than the more popular, higher view count vid I seen. This vid really put it in proper perspective. Thank you. New Sub.

[RoySATX]

Yeah, back in the 70s almost every PCB I remember seeing were hand drawn. Granted I didn't see a whole lot of them. Occasionally even today I find one every now and then, a bike light I bought last year came with a hand drawn PCB.

[juanmacias]

This was so cool, had no idea you could hand make a PCB like that!

[Musicmaddnes]

That's more than a sharpie! I've been bamboozled.

[agnelomascarenhas]

Long long ago I used electrical insulation tape (soft plastic and adhesive) and cut thin strips with surgical blade and ruler. Ferric chloride is a nasty chemical. The junction of tapes would be eroded away. It was fun, frustration and lot of learning.

[Dukefazon]

Pro tip: don't use 9V battery in these testers, the wiring and PCBs inside the joysticks might not like this high of a voltage and heat up causing damage to it. Get 3V LEDs and 2 AA batteries instead.

[imnotbeluga]

Literally what we just did in our electronics class.

[JayJay-kimi]

Use a calliper and a ruler and you will get very neat finishes. Get different size tipped markers too. Use a Dremel to drill holes (a cheaper dremel will do, or make one with a motor). Apply UV solder mask to finish. I've had to do this to create breakouts and converters for some expensive PCB's that used exotic connectors impossible to find anywhere. Sometimes you have to do these things to save the customer from spending thousands on a new PCB.

[dannyrichard]

Been there done that, it was enjoyable to watch anyway

[FloatingFatMan]

Back in college we used to kinda do it this way, but we had a Wyse workstation running some CAD software, a plotter to print directly to the PCB sheets, and a proper tank for the chemical bath...

[davidtams]

As I don't have a laser printer or a UV light this might be the way for me to go.
I've got the printed circuit so I'm now thinking of making a stencil from it.
This is to be an ignition circuit for a model engine I've made.

[xxbongobazookaxx]

Neat, feel like rigging the plotting process onto a 3d printer could make this a bit more effective. Call me a wuss but I think I might reach for some gloves for the chems and clamps + sacrificial blocks for the drilling before trying this, I don't trust myself that much

[otkon]

i done that, with simple circuits, I did a DOD250 Preamp guitar pedal.