Ben P. [re: I can't believe!] "I just attempted using the transfer paper for the first time. I've used photo paper, magazine paper, wax paper, I've tried it all. That's why I felt it necessary to let you know that I cannot believe what I just saw. As soon as I dropped the board in water, the paper floated away leaving a PERFECT circuit board behind! I am NEVER going back to photo paper! You truly have an incredible product. SO MANY THANKS TO YOU FOR THIS AMAZING PAPER!"
Dan A. "I love your product, I can't tell enough people how great it is. I just wanted to congratulate you on getting the recognition you deserve for a great product [feature article in Nuts & Volts magazine, Nov 2011 by Jon Williams]. I still promote your product to my students (I teach at several colleges in California). I'm working on a USB RFID reader for this semester and I'll be giving them the Gerber files and instructions on how to build the PC board using your product. Again, congrats on a well deserved mention in the magazine!"
Again, congrats on a well deserved mention in the magazine!"
Hoag O. "I got great results from the printer and just produced 24 out of 28 boards. As it turns out I forgot to up the toner density and that's why the 4 failures. The system is great and works as advertised when you follow the instructions. I made my total investment back the first time I printed a board."
Guy D. "I purchased several items from your company over time and always been very satisfied. I was very satisfied to deal with your company in the past and will certainly continue to do so. It has been a pleasure to do business with a first class enterprise. My small project turned out to be perfect. My friends think that I am a magician !!!! Of course I gave them my trick and the name of your company and Web Site link."
Bart M. [re: Good Results With The Transfer Paper] "I spoke to you about a month ago and purchased some transfer paper, foil and a laminator from you. Having used other PCB techniques, I have to say that this method is the slickest method I've seen yet. It's working great for me."
Brett J. Hi Frank! Well, I finally got a chance to let you know how things turned out. Your system is truly excellent! Everything worked exactly as described. Having never created a PCB before, I couldn't believe how well they turned out. My business partner had a look at the boards and was amazed. He's now insisting on doing the next boards; just to try it for himself. Given that he does most of our metal work and machining, this is quite a statement. Thanks for a great product.
Gaetano R. [re: Excellent Support] "Hello to everyone at Pulsar! I recently purchased your PCB Fab in a Box kit from Digikey, and gave it a go trying to create a circuit board. I have previously used the tech-2000 blue release coated acetate with poor results. I was quite excited to try out the Pulsar kit to compare it with the tech-2000. Well after many tries and a load of head scratching i was achieving poor results, seemed my toner would smear and flake when the release paper was run through my samsung ML-2165 printer which i had just purchased strictly for the toner transfer printing. After a little pride swallowing and waste of transfer paper I decided to call Pulsar and talk to someone in the support department. My call to the customer support was answered by a gentleman named Frank, and I just wanted to thank him on his help, he was quite knowledgeable and helped me resolve my printing issues in minutes, considering I had banged my head on it for a day or two and wasted a bunch of transfer sheets. He immediately surmised that my problem dealt with the paper thickness setting of the printer and helped me to adjust the paper bond settings. Now after having compared the two products i must congratulate Pulsar on a great product, my transfers come out crisp and complete, no tearing or even thin spots, unlike the tech-2000 film. I purchased the Apache AL13P laminator and performed the tension adjustments and am very satisfied with the pcb board turn outs. Again thank you for a great product and a special thank you to Frank in customer support, his help was greatly needed and appreciated."
Dave E: [re:Very Impressed]: "My company has a pcb router, but I have to get in line to use it. I have the budget to send stuff out, but that takes time. Sometimes, I just can’t wait. I ordered your system with a laminator.Great stuff! I am delighted with the performance. I tweaked things a bit to get perfect results, but once I understood what was going on, I had nothing but success."
David K #1. [re: Oh My God It Really Works] "I've tried MANY times to make PCBs using toner transfer, negative photo from DATAK, and others. I bought some of your Toner Transfer Paper, and had limited success with the iron on method. I just received your Toner Applicator, and OH MY GOD, it works
PERFECTLY. I had a small 2x2 inch board with VERY fine traces and through holes, and MY FIRST TIME, it came out stunningly well. Very sharp traces, through holes perfect. It looks even better with some
Green TRF laid on as well. PCB making was always depressing for me, never got good definition, toner flaked off, photo-chemicals too messy, time consuming and hard to expose properly. I never made much progress. It's really hindered my electronics experimentation. I literally went from design on screen, to finished, drilled, PERFECT PCB in 20 minutes, my first try with your Toner Applicator and Transfer
Paper. Taking your suggestion, I switched to some .032" and also some .016" paper thin PCB material. It cuts with a paper shears or even scissors. Wonderful stuff, and no more dust!Thank you so much for such great products, and such a fun and informative website. You can look forward to much future business with
me, I assure you. Thank you for making electronics fun for me again!"
David K #2: "Hello Frank! My latest thing is Surface Mount devices. It's so easy to get good definition and fine traces with your system, SMDs no longer scare me. Pity my eyes aren't really up to the task, but with a good lighted magnifier, I manage. Can you believe I just said that? I can create boards with traces so fine, I can barely SEE THEM! BTW, your Direct Rub method is outstanding. I can etch a typical board in under 2 minutes, with no heating of the etchant. I've tried MANY times to make PCBs using toner transfer, negative photo from DATAK, and others. I bought some of your Toner Transfer Paper, and had limited success with the iron on method. I just received your Toner Applicator, and OH MY GOD, it works PERFECTLY. I had a small 2x2 inch board with VERY fine traces and through holes, and MY FIRST TIME, it came out stunningly well. Very sharp traces, through holes perfect. It looked even better with some Green TRF laid on as well. PCB making was always depressing for me, never got good definition, toner flaked off, photo-chemicals too messy, time consuming and hard to expose properly. I never made much progress. It's really hindered my electronics experimentation. I literally went from design on screen, to finished, drilled, PERFECT PCB in 20 minutes, my first try with your Toner Applicator and Transfer Paper. Taking your suggestion, I switched to some .032" and also some .016" paper thin PCB material. It cuts with a paper shears or even scissors. Wonderful stuff, and no more dust! I got the box this morning and ran back inside like a kid on Christmas morning. Could this really work? I've been so frustrated up til now, that I didn't believe I'd ever be able to make professional grade PCBs. I set up the Toner Applicator, and prepped up a board, sent it through and then dumped it in a bowl of warm water. I didn't have a lot of time for apprehension because your Toner Transfer Paper releases so fast, and within 45 seconds the blue sheet gently wafted aside to reveal a perfect transfer, my first EVER! You should have seen the grin on my face. My grin got wider when I applied the green TRF and that released perfectly too. Etched it up (using your Direct Rub method) and stripped it off and examined the board with a good magnifying glass under strong light. Totally perfect, razor sharp edges,. 25mm through holes clean and round, and the 5 point text to mark the traces laser clear. Did I really just make this thing myself? Not possible – at least not without the right tools. I did two more boards in the next hour, and those were perfect as well. I can tell I'll be doing a LOT more electronic projects in the future, now that it's so fast, easy, and precise. Now, where did I stash my multimeter? Thank you so much for such great products, and such a fun and informative website. You can look forward to much future business with me, I assure you."
Brian S. [re: FlexPCB] "HI, personally for amateur use I consider single sided is sufficient as double sided with transfer process is difficult enough and with flexible there will be more severe alignment problems. I have been trying your Toner transfer paper an have had 100% success no breaks and very fine tracks. Previously I used Press and Peel and that was very erratic in quality. When will you have a German agent, I have to buy from England and the postage is high."
Kevin S: "First of all I tried your system for the first time this past weekend and loved it. Worked perfectly the first time. Now that I'm hooked on the system I'm ready to buy my own laser printer."
Ron N: "The board etched perfectly and the CNC mill drilled all the various diameter holes spot on. Everything is perfect. I wanted to make printed circuits since I was a teenager back in the early sixties. Today, I now have that capability and I owe it to you for your inventiveness and entrepeneurship."
Greg W. [re: You Rock!!!] "About 14 years ago, I purchased your Etching lab. We used it countless times to make custom boards for our manufacturing equipment. Those boards are still in operation. We now have need to expand our line to include more boards. We pulled the equipment off the shelf, fired it up, and off we go ! You should see the younger employees faces as we fabricate our boards. As the sodium persulphate turns blue, I can only say WELL DONE !"
Matt G. [re: Happy Repeat Customer after 16 years] "Just thought I would offer you this testimony of the durability (or at least the shelf life) of your original "Toner Transfer System" product. I bought my first 5 sheets back in December 1997, almost 16 years ago. I hadn't made any PCB's in several years, but was just teaching my son how to do it this past weekend. I still had a couple sheets of TTS in my workshop, and it still worked perfectly - on the first try!"
James H: "Some years ago, I worked at a design Company that made pcbs in house with the old yellow film, UV exposure, bubble tanks, etc and I never wanted to make another PCB again - such a hassle! However, your system is really a breath of fresh air (or pcbs) and to just "knock up a PCB, directly from my computer" is astonishing! This is going to be a bit of FUN!!"
Julian D. [re: Great Results] "I'm writing to report to you I LOVE YOUR PRODUCT!I have etched a couple boards so far as a hobby/craft/art project using your toner transfer paper (which is freaking GREAT) and your transfer sealant film, using only an iron and a laser printer, and the results were totally satisfactory.
I can foresee buying a lot of this stuff in the future!"
Keith B. [re: Great Product] "Dear Pulsar: I just wanted to e-mail you to let you know the great success that I've been having with your product. In the past month or so, I've learned how to create PC boards on the computer, and did quite a bit of research on how to make the finished product. I came across your product two weeks ago in the Digikey catalog. I promptly ordered a "Starter kit" and the recommended laminator (TIA). I just wanted to say what a great product you have created and I'll continue using this for a long, long time. It is rare that you get great customer service and a product that works exactly as described so I thought I would let you know how great a job you're doing. I ordered more transfer paper and PC board from Digikey as well. Thanks and keep up the good work."
Matt T: "I recently purchased the "PCB in a box" and the TIA laminator. I tested the setup this week
and was quite impressed when it produced a flawless board with 10mil traces on my first attempt. I used an HP P-1006 printer (which I see that you now list as "suspect"), but it didn't cause me any problems."
Kevin O: "Let me first say thank you for making such great products available. I use your transfer paper and green TRF on a regular basis. I also modified a GBC HeatSeal H-200 and it worked great until an associate took it with him when he quit."
Kevin F. [re: Thank you!] "Hi Frank! I spoke with you last week about your Direct Etch PCB system and ordered it from Digikey. Well I owe you a big thanks! After a little bit of playing with the transfers, I was able to produce a perfect PCB that i stuffed and powered up today. Outstanding!!!! I'll never mess with vector boards again or a messy bath system. Thanks for all the info and the great product. Thanks again."
Kev: "Hello Frank, Have managed to get some of your TTS from a friend - think he got it when he was in the US on holiday. He has had lots of practice and is very good at getting it all just right - I still need some more practice! The System is truly amazing! Don't think I have ever seen anything work so well in all my life!"
Andrew D: "Just bought your product for my electrical engineering senior design lab students. We love it. Budget cuts and a broken PCB mill cant stop me!! Have you ever considered having some type of spray bottle with dextrose that you could spray on the transfer sheets between uses to increase the number of times it could be used? Regular starch gives iffy results, ill let you know if I figure out something. I like the entire concept of your business. I wish there were more cool things out there like this. What you do is better than a million kickstarter projects."
Derick Q: "After a period of dilly-dallying and experimentation, trial and process comparison, Pulsar is now my "standard" for my personal lab for PCB/proto up to medium to med-high complexity (about 70% of my crap; the remaining goes up to retardedly-small, six to eight layer boards that go out and postcard-szied with 4 layers I still do using the old process [photo]). Let me just say, I was very pleasantly surprised at the ease and rather frightened by the speed at which I can crank out prototypes or small run for personal use. In my area I wish Fry's Electronics and VETCO.net would stock your stuff. And/or perhaps Amazon Prime?Cheers!
Nick R: "My needs for custom label is larger than my laminator! I will stick with some toner transfer paper and some green foil if that is ok. I would like to add that I am so very impressed with your product and the system that they are used in. If anyone is serious about prototyping and/or small production of PCB boards this is the only way to go. The results are near perfect every single time! Repeatable quality results for a small investment for the serious engineer/inventor. There is NO comparison to ANY other setup using the toner transfer method, you can fool around with an iron and some other paper and end up with garbage or you can quickly produce professional quality boards at any time. Thank you so much for all the advice as I am very pleased with your product."
Ron V: Well, I just used your PCB Fab-in-a-box for the first time and the first board came out quite well. Good job. I’ve been in the business for 32 years, but haven’t made my own circuit boards at home
since I was a student back in the mid-70’s. My, how things have changed eh?
William 4... "I will be singing (and dancing) the praises of Pulsar paper and their process to make circuit boards. I can hardly believe how quickly I produced a board. Especially the method of etching the board. I have used the "bubble tank" method. It took forever, was messy, and didn't do a very good job. I don't think I used more than a couple of table spoons of etch. It didn't even cover the bottom of the dish is was using.
What a great method you discovered!"
Mark L. [re: Product Review] "Since you provided excellent support for me in my use of your product, I felt I’d post a review of my experience with it on www.hangar45.net for the rest of the guys to see.
ARTICLE: Review of "PCB Fab-in-A-Box"
I needed to create a flexible circuit board for the TQ cover to provide back lighting. This has caused considerable problems/hurtles. First to locate copper clad material thin enough to accommodate the 3" radius bend of the cover. There is a material called Pyralux/Mylar that would work well for this, but I was unable to locate any that would work for my project and budget. So I ended up with some scissors cut copper clad that is .01" thick with 1oz copper on both sides. Again, preferred single sided as that is all that is required, but unable to locate. Being extremely budget minded, my only choice to create this pcb was thru chemical etching as the material is just to thin for my cnc to mill this out. I tried a couple of times and failed which gets costly. So, after researching how to do this, I ended up buying some inkjet photo paper, printed the image in reverse using a HP5SI laserjet printer at work and attempted to transfer the image to the copper. I then stole the wife's iron to heat up and transfer the toner image to the copper. Out of 5 attempts, I only ended up with 1 usable transfer. Even then I had to grab the black permanent marker and clean up a few areas. I went to Radio Shack and picked up a bottle of Ferric Chloride solution and did the etching. While it turned out ok, the trace edges and the trace itself ended up with some pitting as the etch solution was able to penetrate into and under the toner. So while it worked I wasn't satisfied with the results. I decided to try PCB Fab-In-a-Box, the toner transfer paper is on the spendy side, but I was spending more on my current process. I decided to buy the laminator they recommend instead of using the wife's iron as it's all about lbs per sq inch pressure and heat to have a successful xfer. The first attempt didn't go well and after talking with Frank at PulsarProFX (PCB Fab-In-a-Box), he felt it was the printer/toner was not up to par. Knowing the printer at work as seen better days, I opted to purchase a used HP 2300 LaserJet on Ebay for $60 plus another $91 for a authentic HP toner cart I found on Amazon. Another key item to this process is that the toner must or really should be HP not a comparable refill and the toner density set to max (5). This weekend I received the printer and printed up another sheet, ran the transfer/copper clad thru the laminator twice and ended up with a perfect image transfer. Immediately after it came out of the laminator I placed it into a pan of cool water where after 1 minute the paper easily released without any intervention on my part. Not to mention I didn't have to scrub any photo paper residue off the board. This was clean and easy!
I then used the PCB Foil that is laminated over the transferred trace on the copper. This helps seal the toner and prevent the acid solution from seeping thru the toner and attacking the copper where your trace would be.
Finally, after cutting the pcb from the copper clad stock, I placed it in the etching solution
followed by a bath in Liquid Tin and ended up with what I consider a perfect flexible board
for my TQ cover.
I found this product to be all that it claims and painless to create a pcb in the 8 minutes theystate on their website. I won't go back to the photo paper or magazine paper methods. It's just not worth my time and money. While I did have to spend the extra cash for the laminator and printer, they are both items I can use for other than this process (tired of buying high price inkjet carts). If you find that you need to make your own circuit board and not looking to invest in the PhotoSensitive method, this is the way to go in my book.
Bill H. [re: Great Product] "Love is probably not the proper word, but I have fallen in love with your PCB Fab in in the box. I find myself making many projects that have languished for years for lack of a PCB. Since I purchased your materials (I purchased them individuality rather than a kit) and a used laser printer I am turning out several boards a week. I really enjoy it. Incidentally I am 71 yrs old and haven't given up yet."
Declan S. [re: Overjoyed] "I just wanted to write and let you know that I am thrilled to have finally found a decent solution for making PCBs at home. I've struggled for months trying to find the right paper & process
and my boards have been very hit and miss. I just made my first board with your system tonight and it went as smooth as silk. I actually used my old settings with 30 mil traces, but now i have the confidence to
start downsizing to something which will allow me to really pack my boards up with components. I really hate prototyping on proto boards, its too prone to mistakes. I had resigned to the belief that I would have to outsource all my prototypes and wait weeks for delivery but that has definitely changed. Say hello to a new long time customer.
George H. "Much appreciated. I just used your product last night, and must say I'm thoroughly impressed with the results. Keep up the good work!"
Phil P. "Hi Guys. I've been using my TTS system to make PCB’s, and it works GREAT! I was using an iron on the transfer systems, but this is so much better. Not only are my PBC’s more accurate now, I also get a perfect trace pattern on the PCB every time! No more retries! I am very happy with the system! I was looking at your web site and am interested in the DecalPRO system. I have the need to make front panels for my electronics projects. I am using .125 thick aluminum painted a textured black for my panels. I’ve been looking into getting set up with some screen printing equipment (messy and $$$) and saw the DecalPRO page."
Ron P. "Did a board this evening. For the first one, came out very well. All in all a very nice system. MUCH better than the TEK200 film I tried several years ago. Regarding your "Contact Etch", I Just finished etching the first board made with TTF and the experience was great. It wasn't a "high density" board, what I would call generic, with 50mil traces. I never would have believed the rub etch would work so well."
Tom L. "I am impressed with the quality and have never had a board come out wrong in many years I’ve been using the products!"
Tony F. "Frank, Just to update you. I bought the laminator from Staples and all of your stuff from Digikey. I printed the single layer design (8 mil traces) with an HP 1200. I transferred the image to my board using the laminator followed by adding the green foil. I etched the board and it turn out amazing. I didn't think I could make boards this easily at home. Your product is worth every cent! I have been avoiding doing this for years. I remember back in high school using masking tape and an X-Acto knife. I wish I found you earlier!"
Website Comments on our products...
• "Making PCB With Your Laser Printer" (Bill Bishop)
• "How To Make Kickass PCBs" (Matthew Sarnoff)
