Adding a Laser to a 3D Printer for Laser-Exposing PCBs

One of the trickier skills for a maker to learn is how to make high-quality custom PCBs. There are a number of ways to make your own PCBs, but they have varying degrees of difficulty and quality. Toner-transfer etching and direct PCB trace milling are both common, but they’re messy and take a fair amount of work.

Another method which is gaining popularity is UV-exposure of PCBs with special etch-resistant coatings. Normally this is done with a UV lamp that’s projected onto the PCB through a sheet a film with the design printed on it. But, that’s not the only way you can get the exposure you need—a laser can be used to do the job too.

Marco demonstrates how he did that by adding an inexpensive laser module to his Cetus3D printer. The control board on the 3D printer has an extra connection that appears to be specifically for this purpose, and the Cetus3D Kickstarter campaign even shows it being used for laser engraving. The laser module that Marco chose was a EleksMaker 300mW laser that costs less than $35.

After removing the extruder and hot end assembly, Marco installed the laser module on a custom-designed and 3D-printed mount. The initial results were pretty good, and were improved with a bit of tweaking. If you’ve got a 3D printer, it would be pretty easy to make a modification like this affordably.