Toner Transfer issues

[craniumboy]

Howdy,

I recently built my first pedal(NPN boost) with the help of aron's write up and it worked great. decided i wanted to finish it out and etch it. So i design the layout get it printed using my works laser printer on to HP glossy photo paper. Sand the box and clean with alcohol. tape down the print. and go to town with the iron. all i got was a smudged up print and NO TRANSFER

I look around the forum and see they say to try a monochrome only printer vs one that also does color. So i try from my local copy store... still no luck. this time i got some transfer but nothing good enough.


any thoughts?

[craniumboy]

i'll debug the photo links in the morning... dunno why my dropbox links don't work

[bluebunny]

I think the copy store will have their printer's "give 'em as little toner as possible so that we make the maximum profit" setting switched on.  I understand this is a bad thing^TM for etches.  Have another search around the forum for more tips.  There's lots of discussion and lots of guys are clearly doing great etch jobs (look in the Pictures sub-forum for examples).

BTW, welcome to the nut house!   

[lespos]

Maybe problem is in photo paper. Best for toner transfer is cheapest 180...220 g/m2 paper.

[deadastronaut]

@cranium: if you have access to the 'works' printer, see if you can change the settings for it  to 'best' and 'toner save OFF '' then you'll get a thicker toner image..

don't bother with copy stores, as marc said...they won't give you a thick image..

[craniumboy]

the paper is 200g/m photo paper so it looks like its in the right range. I may just need to find the right printer! i'll try the work one again, but from searching the forum most people say printers that do both color and black don't work well and thats all we have. @Marc thanks for the welcome! i've researched a lot and assumed it was the toner just wanted to have see it through others eyes.

for those that etch... do you own your own, use works or how do you get the best print so you can get an easy transfer?

[deadastronaut]

i own my own...

samsung ml1660 series..