DIY PCB Laminator on the Cheap

hello guys

who tried to transfer toner ink to pcb by iron?

every time we do this we fail maybe 4 times before operation success

and for better results you maybe need to buy PCB laminator , it's good machine to transfer toners ink with much heat much pressure .

BUT!!!

you don't have to pay 150$ to buy new one designed for PCB's

you just have to modify cheaper card laminator to get same results for less than 30$

lets see how in few steps

Parts and tools

in my case

i bought cheap card laminator and when i opened it i found 2 thermal switches . so we need

1. 2 pieces of thermal switch 170 Celsius or 175 normal close
2. screw driver
3. card laminator (or you can decide which size you need)
4. some handy skills :)
5. mini engraver rotary tool or file tool

Let's explore what we have

Now check your machine is unplugged

and unscrew all the screws :)

find the thermal switches inside like first picture

take off the wires of it and unscrew them from the laminator

when i take them off my laminator i found the first one is 105c and the second one was 145c

now install your new thermal switches . and go the next step

Increase thickness between rollers

Now We need to make feeder accept PCB thickness

so first look at rollers

find this one engaged directly to the motor gear and leave it

the other one we need to loose it more to fit PCB so we have to increase diameter of shaft holder by 1mm from the side beyond of the motor. using mini engraver or small file tool

reassemble the parts togther again and make sure the shaft can move 1mm up and down

now you can try to put PCB inside with no worry of stuck inside

Checking every thing is ok

in machines have a heater they add thermal fuse for safety to avoid damaging heaters

so we have to check temperature rate to make sure everything will be OK

in my machine i found thermal fuse is 192c so i don't have to worry about it .

actually thermal switches will stop the heater at 172c so it will be fine to leave this fuse

but if you have fuse lower than the thermal switches it will burn before heaters reaches the maximum heat

so make sure to short it if temperature rate less than 185

Results

Now i tried to transfer toner from glossy paper

and it worked better than manually ironing the paper on the PCB

you can see the thinnest tracks printed well with no mistakes

have fun :)

Original Post by me on instructables