Old Scanner Transformed Into a PCB UV Exposure Unit

We live in an amazing time, where you can not only design a circuit board and prototype it by hand immediately, but if you want something more professional-looking, you can order it from a PCB house and have your board design delivered in a week or two. The difficulty here is that if you need to go through several revisions, you have to pay for each improper design, waiting for each to arrive.

The alternative is to make boards at home, though you’ll need some specialized equipment. Hacker Andras Kabai decided to set his tiny fab house up using a UV exposure process, and converted an old scanner for this use. His device replaces the scanning equipment that normally moves up and down with an array of UV LEDs, allowing it to expose the entire scanner bed without having to cover the entire area with LEDs.

The unit features a rotary input method, along with a tiny OLED display for user feedback. The stepper motor and driver are from the original scanner, replacing the controls with an Arduino Mega. It’s a really clever reuse of old tech, and perhaps it can inspire other scanner-based hacks as they’re quite easy to procure.

Check out the videos below to see it in development!