The old way of making blank printed circuit boards requires a lot of chemicals and machinery. Chemicals include acids, electroplating solutions and photo resist. The processes include photography, ultraviolet light, etching with acids, drilling holes, and electroplating. It's dirty, time consuming and inexact. Components must be added later with different machines. Many of the chemicals are oil based. It is very labor intensive. Companies sometimes employ hundreds of people to inspect the boards for shorts and opens. The picture below is a blank copper board.

The top three pictures are examples. The top picture is an artwork. The artwork must be converted to a photo negative. A blank board is covered with photo-resist. The negative is placed on top and exposed to ultra-violet light. The photo resist that is exposed to ultra violet hardens and will not come off during the first washing with acid thus leaving the copper connections. The board is then washed with another type of acid removing all the photo resist. The second picture is a board without the components and the third with.

I have a couple alternatives. In one idea a cutting bit cuts the connections. Connections are passed from bottom to top by inserting and soldering wire. The other idea is to spread a conductive substance around, something like a glue, with a computer. The advantages are many. Faster manufacturing time, less cost, fewer chemicals and more exact. R and D can be sped up.

I understand this might put people out of work but at the same time it enables anybody to experiment cheaply. The bottom pictures are a really cheap home brew alternative.

I sent some of the drawings below to Intel in Santa Clara Cal in July 2005. In August Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. ??? I'm not really sure what it means.

For most people PCB layout and etching services are beyond their pocketbook and when developing new products etching services are even more expensive because of the low number of PCB's ordered. This is a way to avoid all services and at the same time and speed up your R&D. The pictures below are 1. a Dremel stand 2. Copper coated blank G10. and 3. a x-y table for drill press. A Dremel is a common household tool sold almost anywhere tools are sold. It can be fitted with drills carving bits sand paper etc. The top picture is a Dremel stand (sold separately from the Dremel) that can be an accurate drill press for drilling holes in your PCB (G10 blank copper). The middle picture is of G10 blank copper. The third picture is a low profile x-y table that could be positioned under the Dremel stand, it could hold the G10 and be used to 'carve' away the copper instead of etching. You would have to do your own layout but building the actual prototype would be much faster and cheaper.