NurdRage - 2012-12-09
We show 10 ways to make PCB etchants using easy to access chemicals 1. Hydrogen Peroxide (5mL of 3%) and Hydrochloric Acid (5mL of 37%) Loses strength in storage but makes copper chloride that can later be used as a fully recyclable etchant. 2. Hydrogen Peroxide (10mL of 3%) + Sulfuric acid (1mL of 98%) Loses strength in storage but can be electrochemically recycled back into copper and sulfuric acid. 3. Hydrogen Peroxide (10mL of 3%) + Sodium Bisulfate (5g) Loses strength in storage but can be electrochemically recycled back into copper and sodium bisulfate. Extremely slow but easier to make since sodium bisulfate is easy to obtain as pH control for swimming pools. 4. Ferric chloride Stable in storage. Somewhat complicated to recycle. 5. Copper chloride (1.6g) + 6mL water + Hydrochloric acid (5mL of 37%) Stable in storage. Extremely easy to recycle as bubbling air through will regenerate the etchant to full capacity. Eventually will need more hydrochloric acid but nonetheless easy to do. 6. Copper sulfate (3g) + Hydrochloric acid (10mL of 37%) Stable in storage. Functionally identical to copper chloride and hydrochloric acid. Sulfate contamination does not interfere with activity. Easy to make due to availability of copper sulfate. 7. Bleach (2mL of 6%) + Hydrochloric acid (10mL of 37%) Loses strength in storage. Produces toxic chlorine gas so must be used outside or in a fume hood. Very easy to make but not economical to recycle. 8. Manganese dioxide (0.5g) + Hydrochloric acid (10mL of 37%) Loses strength in storage. Produces toxic chlorine gas so must be used outside or in a fume hood. Very easy to make but not economical to recycle. 9. Nitric acid (20%) Stable in storage. Produces toxic nitrogen monoxide gas so must be used outside or in a fume hood. When depleted can be boosted once by addition of sulfuric acid. after which copper sulfate waste can be electrochemically recycled. 10. Potassium nitrate (3g) + Hydrochloric acid (12mL of 37%) Loses strength in storage. Produces toxic chlorine, nitrogen monoxide and nitrosyl chloride gas so must be used outside or in a fume hood. Not economical to recycle.
Thank you! thank you! thank you! for all of these electronics chemistry videos Nurd Rage.
Seriously, you've played a major role in helping me discover my interests in PCB design and prototyping. I have been goofing around with electronics since becoming partially disabled in 2014. I've gone from goofing around with copy and paste arduino code to hacking old junk, to designing and etching my own circuits. I've watched this and several of your other uploads a dozen or more times. I have been playing with a container of ferric chloride I was given from RadioShack before they went belly up. I'm finally to the point where I want to try etching some larger panelized designs that are close to A4 sized transparencies. Today I was given a container of muriatic acid from lowes, some 3% hydrogen peroxide, some steel wool, and I'm back here for notes! I also have an old container of tarnex to try that tinning solution recipe you cooked up... yeah I'm that slow... as a gimp it takes forever to get things done. I really really appreciate the references you've made here.
One problem I'm having is the unknown concentration of my old ferric chloride from RS. I don't know if I should try to heat it to evaporate/concentrate it or modify it somehow. Even the last 1/3rd of my bottle of fresh solution took around 45min to etch a 5cm × 10cm double sided design. Most people that I've watched or read about say that etching with ferric chloride should take around 15-20min. How does an amateur go about characterizing the quality and strength of their enchant? I don't expect an answer here or anything. This is simply intended as a positive feedback blurb. I'm just sharing a challenge incase you or anyone else thinks this kind of thing is worth addressing.
I'm sure you have a laundry list of things you'd like to make content about.
Another chemistry experiment I was curious about recently is trying to play with making a transistor using doped materials. I was watching Robert Baruch, on the channel by the same name, reverse engineering a 74 series logic chip at the die level. He was talking about a way to dye the p-channel doped materials during his last live stream. That got me curious about what other transistor effects could be made at home or even in the average lab. It's just something to think about if your interested in that kind of thing ;)
-Jake
Very cool. Thanks for the video. I am looking forward to the videos on recycling these enchants. I have a quantity of used enchant here that I would love to pull the copper out of for environmental reasons.
Great Video! Only miss an approximation of how long these etching cycles took. For one you said that it is extremely slow, but how long did e.g. the Nitric acid take?
Absolutely amazing how Darth Vader changed into such an Expert for chemicals!
Hi. Thank you for your great videos. Help me build copper and copper alloy compounds.
I LOVE THAT INTRO!!!! Very retro. Reminds me of the CBS Special Programming intro from the 70's/80's
You're welcome :) i spent weeks seeking for such informations, finding the right lexic in use, and avoiding bubble filtering limited results. Another book, easily found on the net : "PIHR" by Bob Willis, it stands for "Pin In Hole Reflow", 163 pages
Hi NurdRage. Thanks for this video. It help us a lot. Another important etchant used to make PCBs is Ammonium Persulphate that can be made by an electrolysis of a solution of Sulphuric Acid with Ammonium Sulphate. Could you please show us how to make it that way? Is it very complex?
Hi. Do you know how the copper plating of the PCB vias is done? Great videos!
That's phenomenal! Thanks for the link.
Thats cool-i just uploaded a video making my first printed circuit board using the toner transfer method from a laser printer on shiny magazine paper. No expensive press n peel paper-just a page from a magazine. I used ammonium persulphate and its really cool that you have a list of readily available chemicals.
Right on! I was about to say the same thing. I'm not too fluent in the ways of Chemistry (high school is as far as I went with Chemistry), but I always enjoy these videos and can usually grasp what's going on.
Awesome! Hey, since you're talking about printed circuit boards, you could also talk about ways to metalize holes walls in double face copper printed circuit boards. I'm kind of curious about how do they do it.
This is crazy-relevant to my work. Thanks for the overview. I'm gonna stick with my Ferric Chloride for now, but seeing as bubble agitation is common for etch-tanks, some of the other metal chloride etchants might be in my future. If anyone is interested in popping over to my channel (after you've had your fill of NurdRage, of course) I have a pretty detailed video on etching circuit boards using Ferric Chloride. Thanks for another great vid, -NorthAllenPoole, Fringeneering Labs
You gotta make more gold recovery/refining methods and techniques. Esp when it comes to dropping certain metals out of solution using copper, zinc, steel etc. Alot of people use the Acid Peroxide -> Filter -> HCl/Bleach process and there is not alot of decent videos on exclusively the methodology of using said process. Please please please make some more!
@NurdRage I use Ferric Chloride to etch steel (and stainless steel).
Would adding HCl acid to the weak/spent etchant and then bubbling O2 re-constitute the Ferric Chloride?
Thanks!
A bit late, but yes.
NurdRage, thank you for posting your videos! They are very useful and well done. I have a question though: can you make a video or help show me how to properly dispose of concentrated chemicals such as muriatic acid, ferric acid hydrochloric acid ect. thanks!
ATTENTION EVERYONE!:This is the best comment I've seen on here. People need to realize the TOXINS they are USING AND CREATING and make sure that they RENDER THEM SAFE and DISPOSE SAFELY. This DOES NOT MEAN ONLY NEUTRALIZING THE ACID! THE METALS YOU ARE ETCHING CREAT COMPOUNDS THAT ARE TOXIC! WHATEVER YOU DUMP WILL GO INTO YOUR GROUND WATER! This video claimed there would be a video on this topic. I haven't looked for it yet. If NurdRage hasn't posted one, FIND ONE IMMEDIATELY! AND *******DO NOT MIX WASTES EVEN FROM SAME ETCH WITH DIFFERENT METAL! ALL DIFFERENT CHEMISTRY IS DIFFERENT!******
@Tricknologyinc He just posted a video on recycling etchants. Otherwise take the waste to a proper chemical waste disposal facility. Ask your local garbage company if they have one.
I want to do this 100% green meaning that I do NOT trust any commercial entity to hand this stuff to and hold any confidence that they are not going to take it and mix it with fracking fluids or just drive a tank truck out to some convenient spot and open the valve... Thank you sincerely for the heads up, and please keep me in mind if you see any more info.
@Tricknologyinc Then use copper chloride as it is supposed in the video you commented below. That is 100% reuseable.
Hey nurd rage, do you know a good site that sells platinum covered electrodes? And btw it would be awesome if you would do a video about how to make homemade electrolyic diaphragm. For example, you could use it to optimize the electrolysis of copper sulfate. Love your videos btw.
Yes i guess so, my objective was to make CuSO4 without having any H2SO4 left in the solution so i could safely cook it of. It really looked like the copper was acting like a catalyst, the bubbles where only appearing from the copper.
Actually sodium persulphate is pretty cheap on the webpage I order from, I stick with that (and it can be used in exotic magnesium flash powder as it is a strong oxidiser)
Do tell
I love your videos dude, where do you buy or get all the chemicals you use?
Could you do some form of photo-polymer, suitable for 3D printing?
That's great! Thanks! Assa!
thanks man! house hold hydrochloric acid and peroxide worked like a charm on etching copper thanks man!
You should start your shows with "welcome, i want to play a game with you"
you need to make the walls conductive to do so, in industrial process (see IPC recommandations if needed), a chemical carbon deposition through an ink process is used prior to electrogalvanization for copper deposition. Also, to preserve impedance properties of signal lines, masks are applied, and thickness of deposition is calculated upon copper ionic solution properties (time based)
will you make a more detailed video about the copper cloride(reusable) etching process?
another suggestion for future video: selective corrosion, e.g. nickel, tin , gold or alloys are preserved while copper is etched away. It is the process used in pcb industry.
thanks for the great vid. i was going to etch a fuel injection pcb and was wondering what would be best. it was yesterday that i was thinking about this and u posted this vid yesterday was u reading my mind lol.
I cant wait to try like 3 of them, kno3 and hcl looks so easy to make
Thank you, you are awesome!
It is said that when someone does a great job, people still want to watch even if they don't understand it. like the olympics. Thus we watch. :)
Nice, really shows the chemistry involved in the name brand etchants also, (as they use these compounds anyhow)
for that last one can i use sodium nitrate instead of kno3?
Once again Thank you!.
Most excellent! You've thought of everything, even disposal, which is a problem. Can't wait for that video...
That's a good point. I was just looking through the RepRap project at the time and trying to figure a way for the 3D printer to manufacture it's own circuitry.
great video! just what i was looking for.
Yes. Reactions take from minutes to an hour depending on the etchant.
You are 5 billion cats.
EPIC VIDEO :D !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hey NurdRage! neat video. im sure it was super duper helpful for those so inclined to build circuits. if i may, you use fast forward alot in your videos, and sometimes its hard to know when and when-not (?) we are seeing a reaction in real time. could you maybe annotate when you do use fast forward?
"How to make gold from chloroauric acid". Never mind that he started out with gold, it still fulfils your criteria of "gold from {anything}" :)
Ever thought of doing videos on the basics of chemistry? Such as nomenclature and the like?
For some reason, I felt as if the new YouTube made things faster.
Sci-Show! :D
would it be possible to show Ozone reactions? or production of Ozone?
hello I was wondering if you could make a video on how to precipitate gold from hydrochloric acid & h-peroxide etchant?
peroxide + any acid will work as an etchant, for example, citric or acid or vinegar and it will etch pretty much any metal. But most etchants that produce bubbles are useless for PCB making
the best one so far is ferric chloride with some amount of HCL where you occasionally pour some peroxide for regeneration.
copper chloride + HCl may also be pretty hood but I did not test it as it gets naturally pro9diced as a side product when etching PCB in ferric chloride
RockstarLittle - 2012-12-17
Woah this is captivating, I have absolutely no use for this and yet I'm still watching :-)