I do not much care for forums but this and the EDA board are good electronic ones.

There in no problem with the pattern shifting in a laminator. I use 3M blue painters tape to hold it in place. Same tape works in laser printer.

If you run the board through the laminator too many times it will spread the pattern a wee bit. I use 3 to 4 passes but 2 would be enought. Never had a problem resulting from it. Did some testing and it turns out that the laser printer can be more of a problem is thsi regard. You crank up the darkness to get a dense image but that cause it to distort a bit. Pulsar has some green foil that you can place on top the toner once it is one the board. It should let you use a less dense image setting. But I use .01 lines and even run 2 traces (not often) between IC pads without problems as it is.

My goal is to make the best boards I can with as little pain as possible.

Regarding CNC routing.
Do you use the pcb-gode with Eagle to route your boards?
I use it to create the drill file for use on the CNC.

I could be wrong but I think you can get more detail (finer lines etc) with chemical etching.

Also if you are making more the one board the chemical etch is faster.

It’s actually not that hard for me to align the paper I’m using with the pre-drilled holes, doing both sides at once. I hold it up to the light, get one side, tape it in place; then poke a couple of holes in the paper with a pin to be able to see through and align the other side. Worked well enough for me. Plus I don’t think I could stand having to etch twice, and take twice as long.

I’m open to the idea of using a heat press. I’m a little concerned that the laminator’s rollers might pull my iron-ons a little bit out of alignment on the way through. But more to the point, (1) I’m interested in seeing how good results I can get using supplies that just about everyone already has around the home; and (2) I don’t like etching anyway, and hope to switch to CNC routing soon.

Of course, those are just my own preferences, not any kind of statement about what works or doesn’t. Your ideas certainly have merit for someone who enjoys etching more than I do.

Also if you have not tried the pulsarPro transfer paper it is worth doing.

I first drill the holes using a CNC.

I cover one side with clear box tape and put the toner artwork on the side to be etched.

After the first side is etched I cover it with box tape and apply the artwork to the other (after I removing the tape from the previous step)

When I go over to my friend’s house and use his CNC drill machine or hopefully soon when I start to use my own, I think it’s easier to line up the transfer with the holes before ironing a single-sided board than it is to line up the machine with where the holes are supposed to go. With a really good machine, you should be able to position it carefully — but even the rotation of the board has to be perfect or your registration will be off at one end.

With a double-sided board, I don’t know how to align the transfer on both sides unless the holes are already there to register against.

I’m just starting to make circuit boards (improving the transfer process right now) so I’m asking for myself as well…