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.

One thought on “Blast from the past: Arduino Origins

  1. Keith Flak says:

    dear Pwillard, I saw a prior post you left and I’m in a bit of a pickle. I used Oatey No 5 solder paste accidentally on FR4 PCB and LED and Resistors. I know this paste has zinc chloride, which after lots of hardwork I realized it is very corrosive. Do I start fresh (order more parts from Mouser, get brand new PCB’s from china and hours re-doing everything? Or as you said in the post the connections probably dont have the corrosive under them (components and pads are fine) but there is corrosive material around the joints. Can I simply wash the boards in acetone? Please, please advise.

    Are you at MIT?

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