What's even more interesting is that this is pretty accessible. Given fairly common equipment, at least in a hackerspace, you can make ~8 mil traces on plastic or FR4. Not only that, but you can make them in 3D and with plated vias.<p>This dude has some absolutely jaw dropping (sputtering, scanning electron microscope, waterjet etc) videos on his channel; it's definitely worth checking out the rest of his back catalogue.
I'm jealous of people who have such an elaborate workspace with so many toys and access to reagents. Still, it's super interesting to see all the engineering challenges that go into taking something from "works" into "work reliably"
<i>> [16:45] And when I was getting up to about, you know... test number 66 or whatever here, it all started to fall into place...</i><p>Quotes that let you know you're doing <i>real</i> home science.
One of the advantages of the way FR4 PCBs for example are made is the following:
1) you can deposit a thin layer using an electroless process
2) then now that you have a continuous conducting surface you can electoplate to make a thick layer of copper that is quite strong and durable<p>Anyway, it would seem like with all this work he could have used the laser to define a photomask on copper clad board with some photosensitive material there, then just watch in the iron chloride solution as people have been doing for ages?<p>2 layer PCBs are really cheap these days and you don’t end up with vats of chemicals left over..<p>Anyway cool stuff, I’ve tried to do similar stuff and has always just found that paying $50 for a few PCBs is actually much more economical than this type of setup.