PCB etching with UV laser on Pegasus Touch SLA 3d printer

The Pegasus Touch team found out another use for their printer. UV laser can etch UV sensible PCB boards to make surface for electronic components. Pegasus Touch will get software upgrade to implement this function.
This could become standard feature in all UV laser equipped stereolitographic 3d printers, their software and drivers need some simple upgrades which will hopefully be provided by manufacturers or third parties.



One commentator on Hackaday noted:

Neat, but useful?
Currently I print my board on two transparencies, then aligning them on the UV-sensitized board, then placing whole thing under a UV light source. Two minutes of work followed by five minutes of wait?
This new method would have me remove the resin tank, align and mount the PCB to the build platform (double sided tape?), convert my gerbers to a jpg/bmp, then finally print to the 3D printer?
IF it’s saving time/money, it doesn’t appear that significant. Maybe if mounting and aligning the PCB was very quick and easy? Although I’m imagining a frustrating process involving double-side tape and wasted copper clad trying to correct the alignment.

So, this function could be useful in some situations and usage scenarios, but you will get the PCB etching job done faster if you are experienced user. This upgrade is simple software addon, so it is nice to have some extra features in a single machine.

Learn more about Pegasus Touch SLA 3d printer:

http://diy3dprinting.blogspot.com/2014/01/pegasus-touch-laser-sla-3d-printer.html

If you want to print circuits on your FDM printer you can try this:

http://diy3dprinting.blogspot.com/2013/12/3d-printable-electronic-circuit.html

or get http://diy3dprinting.blogspot.com/2013/12/cartesian-co-ex-desktop-electronic.html