• Cold Plasma Era

    100dollarhacker • 09/15/2023 at 18:55 • 0 comments

    Both in article about microwave induced plasma etching  and Tesla coil device I bought (with which I successfully  etched few micro-controllers) it got few cm of plasma flame. I though it necessary to use powerful  plasma generator. While I was working on my previous project of  Tesla coil trying to increase the power I was shocked to find that all this power is unnecessary. 

    One of main problems with powerful Telsa coil flames was, that it instantly burned the IC's encapsulation and made a real fire. So I had to stop the process stop the fire cool the IC, and after a few seconds it would happen again. Low power Tesla coil on the other hand, didn't burned the IC's encapsulation it gently etched it, leaving clear white mark. It solved one of my big problems about this project of how to keep it safe from burning.

  • Disaster

    100dollarhacker • 06/06/2023 at 20:03 • 0 comments

    After initial success I thought of better way, more automatic. 

    So I've built structure (that holds Tesla coil and powerful fan) and shield that will hold and cool Tesla coil and won't let radiation escape

    Basically, it's a 3D printed cone with aluminium shield on it (not in the picture, already removed it)

    The problem started once I've grounded the aluminium shield. Something went wrong, before I know it device went kaput. 

    Well, I've replaced burned IRF250 and tried again making sure everything is far enough from grounded shield. It work for a minute much less powerful than usual and burnt again. I've changed MOSFET again, each time it was worse than previous ... 

    Arrr... 

    I guess the grounded shield changed capacity of resonant circuit  

  • First attempt

    100dollarhacker • 06/06/2023 at 19:41 • 0 comments

    To remove capsulation I used this small yet powerful Tesla coil.

    After about two hours (yeah, too much time in my opinion) I managed to remove epoxy from Atmel's Attiny85.

    There are few problems with this aproch: 

    • First the output coil gets real HOT just after few minutes. So I had to let it cool down.
    • If you get the chip to close to the flame it burns get too hot if its too far away nothing happens
    • Fumes are terrible
    • Radiation is illegal 

  • Genesis

    100dollarhacker • 06/04/2023 at 19:41 • 0 comments

    I have found an article about removing IC epoxy using microwave induced plasma. For me working with microwave was as dangerous as using Nitric Acid. So I have tried different approach, which is electrical induced plasma using Tesla coil.

    It worked better than expected