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Token Machine (Etch your own circuit board!)

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fatfingers:


For about a year now I've been in the process of trying to get a token machine built.  Well, I still have nothing (much) to show for it, but I did buy a coin hopper off of ebay at one point -- and it works very well.  Some friends and I designed a circuit to drive the hopper when a button is pressed (I'm not going to use money or a bill reader for this).  The plan was to etch my own circuit board and solder all the connections on the board and then build a case around all of that and then, bingo, token machine.

Well, after struggling for many months, I -finally- got my PCB etched to my satisfaction.  It's not perfect, but all the traces are fine.  I have attached a picture of the board.  The next step is to do the soldering, which I'm sure will be really painful because some of those traces are awfully close together and I really have never soldered before (except once WAYYYYYY back in 8th grade electronics class and a couple practice joints a few months back).

In any case, I thought I'd mention it just 'cuz I'm so proud of myself.   ;D

Oh, BTW, the final thing that made me successful in this etch was the discovery of the site PCB Fab In A Box.  It seems their system is so simple, and other methods that appeared to be simple on you-tube just did not work out for me.




severdhed:

very cool....keep us posted.  i would love  to have a token dispenser, and quite a few time started designing my own, but never came up with anything as remotely as cool as you did.



lets us know how it works out

TheShanMan:

Definitely keep us updated on the progress. This is very cool. Gonna have to check out that link you gave. :)

thecheat:

I had to etch a board for something a while ago and I used a similar method.


Printing a flipped image from a laser printer, then ironing it on to the copper, then washing the paper away to leave the toner as a mask. It worked well enough to etch correctly but it was pretty ugly.

fatfingers:


Yeah, that's what I was trying as well.  I could never get the paper to wash away enough for a good etch though.  The toner transfer paper from the site I listed is the bomb.



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