I wanted to use a 74AC14 in the breadboard but all I had were surface mount ones so I used the opportunity to practice with the dry film and laser printer. I use the old win7 mspaint at 400 dpi so that the pads (for the schmidt trigger in this case) are 9x28 dots and the gaps are 12 dots. Whole numbers. I have found that 400dpi pretty much makes all surface mount stuff a whole number of dots LxW. To get the outer pin spacing, those are 0.1", so it takes 40 dots with the pen tool. My only issue with paint is it likes to open in 96dpi, so the image must be resized every time the file is opened.
I've tried overhead transparencies and rice paper as a mask for the dry film, and I've tried directly transferring toner to the copper with parchment paper and glossy magazine paper. But what I did this last time seemed to work the best of all of them... I printed two copies on plain, standard thickness copier paper, carefully aligned them with a flashlight and taped the edges together, then I added water to the top of the dry film, set the paper mask in the water and added another drop of water to the top. I then pressed it down lightly tapping it until the water fully penetrated the paper and the paper tightly stuck to the film covered board. 90 seconds with a nail hardener UV light and then back in the dark and into the washing soda bath. Those are the thinnest and cleanest traces I've ever made with dry film, now I just gotta work on narrowing the gaps
I've tried overhead transparencies and rice paper as a mask for the dry film, and I've tried directly transferring toner to the copper with parchment paper and glossy magazine paper. But what I did this last time seemed to work the best of all of them... I printed two copies on plain, standard thickness copier paper, carefully aligned them with a flashlight and taped the edges together, then I added water to the top of the dry film, set the paper mask in the water and added another drop of water to the top. I then pressed it down lightly tapping it until the water fully penetrated the paper and the paper tightly stuck to the film covered board. 90 seconds with a nail hardener UV light and then back in the dark and into the washing soda bath. Those are the thinnest and cleanest traces I've ever made with dry film, now I just gotta work on narrowing the gaps
