Week+of+12-16-2012

12-16-2012 Today, I went over to Matt's house to create a circuit board that will be used as a plug for my new scope. I had to go over to Matt's because all of the chemicals were already at his house and it would've been a hassle to bring them into the lab. When I arrived, I cut a square 1 by 1 inch square piece of copper sheet. I then cleaned it with Acetone and heated it up. I then cut out a square piece of laminated paper which had the toner on it ready to be placed on the copper. I placed the square toner piece on top of the copper square and then heated it with an iron while pressing down. I repeated this process, making a second one, just in case bad were to happen while drilling later. Then I made a makeshift holder out of some plastic wiring and placed the square in it. We then placed both sheets of copper into Ferric Chloride and stirred them around. About thirty minutes later, all of the copper not covered in toner was dissolved. We rinsed the parts down initially with water then I cleaned them more fully with acetone. I then used the Dremel tool to drill the designated holes into the sheet. On the first sheet, the holes were all drilled successfully and that will be the one I will be using with the new scope. The second sheet did not have the proper holes outlined from its dissolving in the ferric chloride. We had to center point hole punch the 10 holes in the middle part.When drilling, the drill bit would get caught on the remaining copper and would drill in the wrong place as can be seen in this picture. Fortunately we had made two sheets. The first one will be able to work correctly and Matt let me keep the second one as a souvenir. The correct piece will be bolted on to the back of the scope and spring pins will be soldered into the holes in the middle. We had to make this custom circuit board because the electronics for our scope is also custom made. Matt also informed me that Kevin has finished machining all of the metal for my new scope and that any remaining parts will come in following the new year. We will have it finished and ready to scan probably the second week of January.