I did the layout in PCB a free layout tool. Printed Circuit Board Layout Tool download | SourceForge.net The program outputs a very good postscript file that I laser printed onto picture paper. The mask was then transfered to single sided FR4 material using an ordinary clothes iron. Paper was removed by soaking in warm soapy water and then carefully rolling it off in strings.
I wiped the boards dry with a paper towel before I began soldering.
I drilled holes with a .029" bit held in the handle of an xacto knife. Kind of wished I had a cnc or at least a drill press for that part.
Residual water on the pcb has never been a problem for me. Rindert still has to etch the board anyway, if he does what I do. Then it is cleaned with alcohol, etc…
A Dremel tool works quite well for drilling the holes in the occasional pc board, even free hand.
Ferric Chloride has always worked well for me, and you don’t need a CNC milling machine. I can etch several small boards with the same 1/2 pint of it. That same half pint is still ready to go for next time.
I couldn’t think of a better place to put this, but thought generally the membership should be interested with a fundamental breakthrough in combustion.
Some material I was reading specifically mentioned syngas / town gas utilized with this system. The inventor mentions that the system is flexible/ robust.
I figure for the NOx reduction, and finding something novel in combustion the man deserves a prize and national recognition.
Does that transfer well? I heard you could use glossy magazines as well, but I heard there were problems with the traces, and you had to check them all.
The water problem doesn’t exist really exist for unpopulated boards. Existing electronics are an issue like you -can- use it for cleaning out say a USB connector on your phone, but you want to wait for it to dry first, and most people don’t have the patience to wait, they power it on too soon and end up frying it. Thus the isopropyl alcohol.
That is the nice part about cnc, but I think you can use a dremel type tool. I can’t imagine trying to do that by hand.
A search of images seems to indicate flexibility in the design to a degree. I haven’t looked far into the flow parameters, but it obviously is with a certain range of velocities and richness. The inventor is a bit hard to make out but describes the burn characteristics are stable over some range of conditions.
I don’t know if it would be stable enough to use on a retort with it’s wildly varying conditions. It does look pretty phenomenal though. And it should burn like a conventional burner if pushed outside it’s design parameters, I suppose.
Depending the need / objective of the total setup, one thing to be considered:
a perfect mixture at stoichiometric condition will burn the hottest
The lean burning flame, as seen in the clip, is the coldest flame
I am building something “similar” with the objective to have a clean burning flame for direct fired dryers in the food industry.
The low temperature prevents the Nitrogen to form Nox
The total heat capacity is “the same” , the temperature drops equal to the amount of air increasing
For my purpose, drying rice powder, the perfect gas is from gasification, pure CO, as this does not produces moister on combustion.
I will most certainly look deeper in this clip / inventors work
It does a good job. I learned to apply a little heat with the clothes iron. If you apply too much heat the toner becomes brittle and flakes off. I’ll have to remember that about the glossy magazines. Thanks Sean!
Hey, I found a video that I really like, probably will have relevance for the metal fab crowd…
I know from experience the new high grade thin kerf cut off discs will cut through an amazing amount of steel, so long as you keep them straight and can control the rate of feed. This setup addresses that perfectly.
I’ve also learned that whenever possible, just cut to the line with a disc, saves all the clean up grinding and extra time from torch work, even in 3/4". Abrasive disc technology has advanced greatly over the last 20 years.
I made a jig a few years ago, a frame of whatever length needed to span the material, a holder for the plasma torch, and a pivot point. The torch holder slides to make various size holes / circles. The material rotates on a pin or screw through a center hole. The resulting circles are very precise, and fast to make.
