Just give me some non-God-centric electroless copper plating!

Updated 29 December 2012, 6:42am – See Think & Tinker’s guide to acid copper through-hole plating

That’s it – I’m giving up for the day.  Twenty-one hours of searching online for a copper plating service that’ll give me PCB through-hole plating anywhere in Metro Manila yields nothing. And worse.

I’d finally come across the Industrial Technology Development Institute on the Web, hoping to find links to technical resources, online or in real space.  Say, a directory, perhaps, of commercial PCB copper plating services in Metro Manila.   Ahh, “Chemicals and Energy”, this sounds promising!

But no – this sounds like another place that got smothered by fuzzy “appropriate tech” thinking, “lord help us” thinking wrapped about with a cotton candy vision statement:

These god-centric sources of non-information get on my nerves at the best of times. It's even more irritating not to even find specific mention of chemical process industries, or waste remediation, on a site that you'd have every reason to expect would have info about those topics.
These god-centric sources of non-information get on my nerves at the best of times. It’s even more irritating not to even find specific mention of chemical process industries, or waste remediation, on a site that you’d have every reason to expect would have info about those topics.
Punyeta.  “…as well.”  I really don’t give a rat’s ass what metaphysics you fixate on, and it’s really none of the public’s business what you believe in your free time.  Leave your damnable religion out of the agency vision statement and put in some real content!  Anuba! Salamat, ha, but food processing and QA isn’t the final word in domestic industry, or so I would think reading off the rest of the Web’s news on renewable energy, manufacturing, biotechnology, 3D printing, and … gah!  Kadami ng maaring gawin dito! Meanwhile, DOST is simply useless as a source for the information I’m seeking:
  • Technical standards documents, i.e. for
    • Machine tooling metrology procedures, techniques, services;
    • Comparison of copper deposition processes for nonconductive substrates (i.e. FR4, polyimide film); and
    • Subtractive metal machining processes.  High-speed milling.  Design of low spindle power (benchtop) cutting tools.
  • A directory of enterprises that employ these technologies in commercial-scale production, or as a service to other SMEs, small- to medium-scale enterprises.

Sigh.  I really wish State would 1) put in fewer “God-centric” types and more technically competent people with real ideas into these agencies, and 2) that DOST would put up a catalog of University senior and graduate-level theses relevant to manufacturing.

Then again, this lack is a void needing to be filled; and right there’s another idea for (yet another) “small project” to wrap my head around, methinks.  Meanwhile, my own government will serve for my poster child for my own take on why “small government” is a damned good idea: A bigger one that puts up shit like this God-centric vision statement would be a bugger up my ass, wouldn’t it?

I’m going to sleep off my irritation, now.  Happy holidays, dear fellow tinkerers, beloved geeks, and nitpickers!

Visit Think & Tinker for a thorough guide to acid copper through-hole plating. It looks like we can do this here – I’ll post updates when I work out the procedure, and locate suppliers here in Metro Manila.

One thought on “Just give me some non-God-centric electroless copper plating!”

  1. I should mention that I do remember, hazily, the idea of comparative advantage – entrepreneurs are simply not going to engage in businesses in tightly crowded fields, or for products and services with low demand. But the worrisome thing about these specific services I’m looking for are that they’re so *fundamental*, i.e. I can’t imagine Limor Fried doing what she’s done here in Manila: Taking an electronic circuit design (let alone a bunch of designs) from homebrew CAD to production ready film, and into small-volume runs turns out to need a few specialized steps, for which the information and cost barrier is simply too high to engage solo. I’m talking about economical copper plating sans copper cyanate solution; accurate PCB drilling; component pick and place, and reflow soldering.

    The barriers feel especially high as 1) I’m paying for all of this out of a programmer’s salary, and 2) I don’t have particularly deep pockets, and so can’t throw money abroad for a solution to my fabrication or machining needs (i.e. have a China or Singapore PCB fab make me a small run of 50 or so PCBs to assemble here on weekends).

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