Someone in the Arduino forums mentioned they were having troubles with their Single Sided Arduino board that they built on their own. It reminded me that I wanted to make one for myself. I needed an extra Arduino I could use for RS485 testing and a NON-USB one was preferred.
What a great afternoon project this is. I took the toner transfer PNG file and printed it out so I could use the laminator to do a toner transfer. Once it was etched I could really see the benefit of having a silkscreen on the topside… the trouble is, I’ve never done a board with imagerey on top. I first tried using a heat transfer… just like I did with the copper side but I had no luck. After 10 times through the laminator I still had no luck bonding the toner with the fiberglass side. (I sort of figured that would happen…)
I remembered that I had some 8 1/2 by 11 blank decal sheet on hand and thought maybe I could float the silk screen side decal onto the surface. OK… having never done this before I’m going to now admit I was a bit overconfident, this is really not easy.
Eventually I got it applied. I lost a few bits here and there, but the important parts didn’t tear off. I wanted to coat the decal with FUTURE floor wax but I could not locate the bottle I had for this purpose. It would be a good idea though.
Anyway… here are the results. Powered it up and loaded a sketch… Yippie.