Has anybody tried using the “Thermal transfer Printing “ method to produce PCB’s instead of painting the PCB with a black paint. This foil is often used in manufacturing point of sale barcodes. The film consists of a very thin plastic film covered with a thin layer of some form of wax. I envisage that the PCB would be covered with the foil and using a fish tank air pump (using the vacuum side) the foil would stick tightly to the blank PCB. It would now be possible to use a low power laser to print the required image before etching. [en.wikipedia.org] https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?133,434422,434422#msg-434422 Sat, 13 Jun 2026 14:46:47 -0400 Phorum 5.2.23 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?133,434422,434444#msg-434444 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?133,434422,434444#msg-434444
The wax was etch-resitant, but for better stability I've remelted it after printing with a hot-air gun.

Most transfer-printed PCB's I've seen the last years were made with laserprinted toner on a thin sheet of (glossy) paper and transferred on the PCB with an iron ... but this methode is not 100% light-tight, so I'm 'laserengraving' my paint-coated PCB's and etching them ...]]> VDX Laser Cutter Working Group Thu, 20 Nov 2014 03:06:44 -0500 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?133,434422,434422#msg-434422 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?133,434422,434422#msg-434422
[en.wikipedia.org]]]> Waiata Laser Cutter Working Group Wed, 19 Nov 2014 22:51:21 -0500