Will try next time it happens

It is a lot of work, but I like not having to wait two weeks to a month for my PCB to arrive. Plus since I'm into chemistry I don't mind messing with chemicals.

Comment by Thomas Gatliff: I very much appreciate your work as it has helped me immensely. Do you have a specific PH you are looking for on the activator and post activator solutions? Also, do you attempt to replace some of the HCHO in the electroless solution after each use? Your video has rather small boards where it doesn't matter much, but Im using substantially larger boards and 15x the amounts you reference, and want to try to better maintain the solutions over time. Any suggestions you might have would be very much appreciated. Reply: Unfortunately I do not have a pH meter in my lab, only test trips, so I do not havee a precise value, I usually start adding concentrated NaOH solution till the pH is strongly basic, and then drop in the board and add a bit more if I do not see hydrogen evolution after some time. Yes, I do refill the solution with HCHO if the pH if I can't get good hydrogen formation after adding a reasonable amount of NaOH solution, especially if when checkin g the pH before adding the NaOH I find it is not strongly acidic. Acidifying the solution before storing it for long time helps but does not completely stop HCHO decomposition, and loss of acidity is an indicator to add more HCHO. For larger boards I recommend agitation with a magnetic stirrer.

No problem!

Many chemicals can be bought from ebay, but I agree it's more difficult than it should be to do science at home.

The Triron-X100 could probably be replaced by another surfactant if you can't find it, but some experimentation may be required. Formaldehyde is very hard to replace, there are alternatives which are known to reduce copper salts to the metal in a controlled way but are just as toxic. If you have no chemical experience I suggest to either wait for someone to develop a safer process (NurdRage was trying for example), or to learn chemistry one step at a time before messing with formaldehyde. And build a fumehood.

I'm planning to write all the steps and formulations in a document. Will make it available as soon as I find the time to write things down.

@@hydrogentime2872 Thank you

@@gary1143 Process 01 on hackaday.io: hackaday.io/project/180422-process-01-an-open-source-2-layer-pcb-process Process 01 in pdf form: cdn.hackaday.io/files/1804227719174848/Process%2001.pdf

If you keep it in a well sealed container the activator is stable for years. When the activator goes bad it also changes color becoming transparent, so it's easy to know if it's still good.

You can in theory use only electroless, but it is slow to build up the desired copper thickness, and you need to fine tune the process for the surface finish to withstand the etching. Only electrolytic does not work as copper only plates to already conductive surfaces, and the holes are not conductive initially.

I'm not sure. The dark color could be a fine suspension of metallic palladium but I did not investigate.

There is no substitute that I know of for this process, but search on youtube for other processes. Some had success spraying conductive carbon paint and then electroplating onto that.

@@hydrogentime2872 I pulled the trigger and bought everything for this process. (Except the PdCl2, of course). I'm trying to find another supplier for it, fingers crossed. I'll post results when I actually get to do it on a real job.