Fiber laser for direct PCB engraving?

[David Sharp02]

Would a fiber laser be able to remove the copper from a PCB blank?

I'm currently spray painting the blank PCBs, using a CO2 laser to remove the spray paint to expose the copper that needs to be removed and finally etching the board in ferric chloride.

If I could remove copper from the blanks directly with a fiber laser, I could do everything in one clean step. No need for spray paint, or ferric chloride.

Thanks,
Dave

[Gary Hair]

I haven't had consistent results with copper, not sure why. One thing you could do is use a fiber to remove the paint, much faster than co2!

[Kev Williams]

I've found that a fiber is to copper as a C02 is to stainless (or as Superman's eyes are to lead ;) )-- with patience you can maybe leave a mark on it but that's about the extent of it.

[matthew knott]

I've made pcb with the fiber , you only need to cut around the track , as mentioned fibre is not great on copper, I always use the yag or 50w fibre , and cut at least a 0.3mm gap around the tracks