How to Make a Printed Circuit Board (DIY PCB Fabrication)

Zeroes and Ones editor, coder, musician, DIYer and producer extraordinaire Matthew Cieplak under the alias Extralife has started a new YouTube channel which he describes as “Funky disco music with a side of DIY, software and electronics. A channel for the doomsday-prepper slash clubgoer demographic.”

His second instalment is a video on making your own PCBs (printed circuit boards), useful for DIY electronics.

Here’s what he had to say:

I told you we’d be doing electronics! Today we walk you through the steps in fabricating a printed circuit board at home, using a just a few specialty supplies to get a professional quality result for DIY electronics projects.

…these are the parts he used in the video:

• Blank Copper/Phenolic Resin boards
• Ferric Chloride Anhydrous (etchant)
• Tonepad Rebote 2.5 Delay Circuit

… and finally here’s the finished board:

Being able to create your own circuit boards opens up a whole world of possibilities for the DIY electronic musician. The schematics for numerous guitar pedals, synthesisers and various other hardware effects can be found online as well as more esoteric projects like customising existing units.

Eurorackers Synthesis Technology have recently started an educational YouTube channel detailing the different CAD (computer aided design) tools used to design, build and test modules – this is well worth spending some time with if you’re new to DIY and want to understand components a little better.

Check out some of his other videos over on his YouTube channel and be sure to check out his other work as DATA/DEBT.