Monthly Archives: November 2017

Blast from the past: Arduino Origins

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.