Make things with Cu (Copper) : idea.

Hello. It's difficult to explain my idea in English, because I'm French, so please excuse my faults and misunderstanding.



My purpose is to add copper (6) parts, for obvious electrical reasons, in the objects (1) made by the machine (3).

When you electrolyze a Cu++ solution with copper electrodes, you transfer copper from the anode (electrode -) to the cathode (electrode +) (2).

When I was at school, we put iron (Fe) in Cu2+ solution. When we cleaned the iron, our gloves was dirty, because the "new" copper is very brittle.

If you rub the cathode (electrode -) (2) on the object (1) you make, you make a trace of copper (6) on the object.
The object is a bit wet with the the Cu++ solution (4 and 5), and electrically linked with the electrode (2) by the existing copper (6) : the small trace of copper (6) increase itself it's thickness a bit. Of course, many passes of the machine (3) are done.

The anode can be made of bad quality copper, for example of waste of copper, it doesn't matter : the copper (6) of the object will be pure !

I can't test it for real, but I hope it'll be useful. Please answer me for informations, in French, or English, (or German, but it'll be harder for me ! ).
Thanks for your attention and for the improvement of the machine.

Hi RedGuff,

... it's a similar idea as 'painting' with graphite and then electrodepositing copper on the conductive tray.

The problem is the poor adhesion of the newly added copper and the surface - it's not stable and will be easy wiped away.

AFAIK the best actual solution for this is embedding metallic microparticles or salts in the fabbing material and 'activating' them by laser or per some sort of acidic ink.

Then you have a solid basis in the material and can add solid copper with galvanics ...

Viktor

Wait..
I'm just wondering what would happen if we just print a protective layer of ABS/PE onto the fragile layer of copper.
Just to prevent something could scratch the surface
Or maybe tinning the copperlayer afterwards would be a sufficient protection,
just like you tin your homemade pcbs.

Any ideas?

'sid

sid Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I'm just wondering what would happen if we just
> print a protective layer of ABS/PE onto the
> fragile layer of copper.
> Just to prevent something could scratch the
> surface

Sounds good. That would prevent oxidizing too.

Its been suggested from time to time. Somewhere in the archive there is a project where copper flake was added to a resin and the mixture extruded onto a plate before being used as the cathode in a copper plating bath. The drop in resistance was impressive so it is do able but adhesion promoters in electroplating are fairly complex things and would need a lot of work.

Mike