I've been looking into making my own pcbs and was thinking I may try printing the circuit on to the fr4 with carbon and electroplate the circuit on. After a while on google I havent found any info on this. Obviously I'm not the first person to think of this. Can any of you kind and intelligent folks tell me why etching seems favored over deposition?
Electronic – Electroplate a circuit onto fr4
pcbpcb-designpcb-fabricationpcb-layers
Best Answer
No, that's not going to work. Even with pre-clad board, having the copper stay adhered to the substrate during soldering can be a problem. Your plated-over-carbon won't stay stuck at all.
Some commercial board production methods actually do involve electroplating to increase thickness, but they do so starting with a copper cladding, not something else.
If you really want to try something DIY, try heat transferring laser printer toner to serve as an etch resist from flimsy "junk mail" paper onto copper clad and then soaking the paper to remove. It's tricky to get right, and messy, but with care one can achieve 8-10 mil (0.2-0.25 mm) traces for TQFP's. Really it's only justified in a "need a simple prototype today" case - otherwise quick turn prototype fabrication makes more sense.