Make Your Own Metal Solder Stencils – Here’s How

Felix Rusu’s home-made solder paste stencils are so good you’d be forgiven for thinking they were laser-cut. He’s actually using a sheet of aluminum cut from a Dr. Pepper can and cleaning it with acetone and heat. After he sets up the stencil in a PDF file, he is using vinyl shelving paper to transfer the toner onto the metal. After doing this, the little sheet of aluminum is etched using HCl and peroxide. The results are astoundingly accurate and if you’ve got these common materials sitting around, you can start making your own SMD stencils in no time. The video above is an excellent walkthrough for the entire process.

So maybe it’s time to finish off that soda and get to work! There’s a bit of question-and-answer below the vid on YouTube, so you can check it out directly here as well.

(via Hackaday)