>
> Here's a trick which MAY be useful. Like all the best ideas, I discovered it
> by accident - in this case while trying to print an envelope short side in.
>
> If you cut a sheet of paper to less than a certain length (the exact length
> will vary with your printer) and feed it to a laser printer, then the feed
> rollers after the toner deposition stage will (may?) fail to pick it up and
> the paper will stop in the midst of the printer without having been fused.
>
> I have an old HP4L that I normally use and if I feed it a half sheet it sits
> nicely in the printer until I remove the toner cartridge and take it out.
> You now have an unfused smudge free copy waiting to be transferred to
> something else.
>
> I haven't tried this for PCB work but I have used it to transfer toner to
> mugs and then baked them in a domestic oven to produce a surprisingly robust
> finish.
> I have also transferred pictures from a scanner to a plastic surface by this
> method.
> YMWV
>
> This would be very easy for someone to try for PCB purposes - if you do
> please  let us know the results!
>
> You could perhaps get a similar result by depowering the fuser roller (or
> removing it ?) but this would be much harder to do and much more liable to
> smudge.
>
>       Russell McMahon
> _____________________________
>
> From other worlds - http://www.easttimor.com
>                                 http://www.sudan.com
>
> What can one man* do?
> Help the hungry at no cost to yourself!
> at  http://www.thehungersite.com/
>
> (* - or woman, child or internet enabled intelligent entity :-))
>

>
> >I wonder if it would smudge if you just put a switch on the power supply
> >line to the fuser element.. then you could let the paper print manually
> >but not fuse it to the paper.. you could print stuff on anything that
> >would fit in the printer slot then... It'd probably smudge though..
>
> >From my experience with servicing laser engines, I would say what will happen is
> some of the toner will collect on the fuser roller because it is not being fused
> into the paper, and then will produce repeat patterns along the paper over the
> rest of the image, right where you do not want it. I would like to try Russell's
> idea, though possibly taking it one step further. How about charging up the
> surface of the laminate in a similar manner to the method used by a laser
> printer to charge the image roller, and then shine the image direct onto the
> laminate. Pass the laminate through something which will drop toner onto it a
> bit like a continuous flow chocolate machine, and then direct fuse the toner to
> the laminate. Yeah, I know it is cloud cuckoo land, as it will not be possible
> to discharge parts of the laminate using the image because it is a copper sheet
> instead of a silicon roller, but it would save some image stretching problems.

> Russell McMahon wrote:
> >
> > Here's a trick which MAY be useful. Like all the best ideas, I discovered it
> > by accident - in this case while trying to print an envelope short side in.
> >
> > If you cut a sheet of paper to less than a certain length (the exact length
> > will vary with your printer) and feed it to a laser printer, then the feed
> > rollers after the toner deposition stage will (may?) fail to pick it up and
> > the paper will stop in the midst of the printer without having been fused.
> >
> > I have an old HP4L that I normally use and if I feed it a half sheet it sits
> > nicely in the printer until I remove the toner cartridge and take it out.
> > You now have an unfused smudge free copy waiting to be transferred to
> > something else.
> >
> > I haven't tried this for PCB work but I have used it to transfer toner to
> > mugs and then baked them in a domestic oven to produce a surprisingly robust
> > finish.
> > I have also transferred pictures from a scanner to a plastic surface by this
> > method.
> > YMWV
> >
> > This would be very easy for someone to try for PCB purposes - if you do
> > please  let us know the results!
> >
> > You could perhaps get a similar result by depowering the fuser roller (or
> > removing it ?) but this would be much harder to do and much more liable to
> > smudge.
> >
> >       Russell McMahon
> > _____________________________
> >
> > From other worlds - http://www.easttimor.com
> >                                 http://www.sudan.com
> >
> > What can one man* do?
> > Help the hungry at no cost to yourself!
> > at  http://www.thehungersite.com/
> >
> > (* - or woman, child or internet enabled intelligent entity :-))
> >