Print Your Own Circuit Boards

You will use a Laser Printer to print your bottom board design onto a sheet of magazine paper. Do NOT select the mirror option when printing the bottom board design or your image will be flipped and not usable. I used an HP LaserJet P1606dn Laser Printer, but any laser printer will do. If you are printing your design from Eagle, remember to only display the layers you are interested in printing. In this example, I only displayed Bottom (16), Pads (17), Vias (18), and Holes (45) layers. If you are printing a double sided board, you will want to add at least two drill holes to opposite sides of your board design before printing. This will allow you to line up the top portion of your board in a later step.

The easiest way to print onto the magazine paper is to first print your design onto a sheet of normal printer paper. This will provide you a guide so you know where your printer is going to actual print the ink on the paper. Once you have your design printed on normal printer pager, cut out a section from a page in a magazine that contains little or no ink. Tape the section of magazine paper over your design on the printer paper and reprint your design onto this paper. The less ink on the magazine page the better! You do not want to print onto a page that is already covered in ink or you will get unwanted toner transfered to your board (see below).