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first experiments with stencils

A project log for DIL-Duino

A complete Arduino environment in a DIL-8 form factor based on the DigiSpark Hardware

daniel-griehaberDaniel Grießhaber 11/07/2015 at 15:242 Comments

I never used stencils to apply soldermasks before (Well, I also always milled my boards which limited the size of the smd components to a size that is still pretty easy to hand solder, so I'm very new to boards in this quality).

Since I use a TQFP Packaged ATTiny, I thought it would be a good idea to produce some stencils for the board.

My first thought was to mill them myself from some thin aluminium sheets, but I quickly realized that I dont have mills small enough and the only way to produce holes small enough would by to etch them or use a laser cutter. Since I do not own a laser cutter and have no idea if it is even possible to etch aluminium, I searched online for cheap and easy services.

I quickly found OSHStencils and was quite suprised from the fammiliar interface (well, exactly what you expect from the name :) ). I uploaded my *.brd file and ordered a set of stencils. Lets see how they turn out when they arrive.

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Daniel Grießhaber wrote 11/10/2015 at 17:38 point

Thanks for the link. I just had a look on google. I didn't think that it is that easy to get muriatic acid in Germany. We always have quite strict constraints when buying "potentialy dangerous" chemicals.

Although I don't think I will do my stencils at home in the future, I'm still going to buy some acid just for the sake of learning and trying it out.

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