A suggestion about printing electroics

Hi

I have to admit, I don't even know much about 3D printers, but just want to give some thoughts...

I noticed in (reprap.org/wiki/Wanted_Objects [reprap.org]) that there were many machines that people hope to one day print.

Here is a suggestion for printering electronics with wires: where the wires are desired, print hollow tubes. And then fill the tubes with metal powder, forming a conductive wire.

I mentioned this elsewhere, but no one replied to me...

One of the suggestions I saw on the page is

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^ Printed circuit boards, especially ones with electrical components mentioned above already on them.

While making tiny electrical components with a 3D printer seems far off, it might be able to dispense them at the right positions and suspend them in plastic connected with wires.

Maybe this will create not only circuit boards, but entire gadgets. Maybe one day remote controlled robots.

I'm not sure if here is where I should post such whims. I vaguely heard of a place on the Wiki to post it instead, but I'm not quite sure which page it is. I saw some pages which only had short ideas.

So now I posted it on this forum. But a forum probably is probably never good place to post. ...as I learned from a previous experience, all I'll accomplish by posting ideas in a forum, is I'll attract nice comments from friendly people and have a little conversation. But ultimately this post will be forgotten, and I won't be sure where to go next, and after a while I'll just do something else. What do I do?

The powdered metal could be blended with graphite powder, and a gel to help with conductivity and accurate placement.

Check this out:

Additive wire laying
[forums.reprap.org]

Hi Andres, welcome.

You say that "ultimately this post will be forgotten" but that's not exactly true. Most of the people here today might forget it (although some of us have longer memories than others) but the internet won't forget it. And in fact the internet has not forgotten the other posts about this topic in years past. Try typing some of these terms into a search engine, and you can start to see some of the many interesting ideas people have kicked around on this forum in the last seven years:

site:forums.reprap.org conductive traces

site:forums.reprap.org conductive powder

site:forums.reprap.org printed electronics

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Andres Pena
What do I do?

Read threads, post threads, update the wiki, build a 3D printer, try experiments, report your results... repeat forever.

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MattMoses
Read threads, post threads, update the wiki, build a 3D printer, try experiments, report your results... repeat forever.

You forgot "spend lots of money" in your flowchart above. I have personally invested (thrown away?) more than $1000 USD this year alone just trying different experiments to see what works and what doesn't.....

I'm going to hedge my bets and say that rather that trying to fully integrate circuit building technology into a single extruder, the easiest way will be to use multiple tooling heads.
Something along the lines of this could be used in conjunction with a pick and place function for components.
The slicing software could be made to take electrical components into consideration and encase them in plastic. Obviously tweaking would be needed on the conductive ink / pen side of things to get good adhesion to a less than perfect surface and to make sure that it can withstand being layered over. The only disadvantage of this method compared to conductive filament is that you're restricted to 2d circuits.

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vreihen
You forgot "spend lots of money" in your flowchart above. I have personally invested (thrown away?) more than $1000 USD this year alone just trying different experiments to see what works and what doesn't.....

I've spend even more in the past year, but I don't think it was "thrown away." Much was learned, lately I've been coming up with a lot more trashed filament, but at the same I'm learning a lot more about it. How many failed lightbulbs were there? I don't think those were thrown away either.

---

Realizer- One who realizes dreams by making them a reality either by possibility or by completion. Also creating or renewing hopes of dreams.
"keep in mind, even the best printer can not print with the best filament if the user is the problem." -Ohmarinus

Adding components (e.g. computer chips) to a circuit board: dispense the computer chip on the circuit board. Also dispense a small magnet on the circuit board. The magnet can be moved around by moving another magnet underneath the circuit board.

Using a video camera, we use artificial intelligence to locate the chip, and push the chip to it's correct location with the small magnet.

Once everything is in place, we keep spraying the circuit board with glue until everything sinks in.

Note:

The small magnet should have low friction, because it presses against the circuit board and you don't want it to scratch the circuit board too much.

The dispensing mechanism does not need to be perfect. If we dispense too many unneeded components, we can move them out of the way. But what if a component becomes upside-down? The small magnet can have wedge or something to flip components. Or it can push the upside-down component out of the way and use a component that is not upside-down.

Will it work?

Andres, what you are describing is known as a "pick and place" machine. Many people have built their own. There's even a reprap subforum for it: Pick-and-Place Electronic Assembly

Typically they use a small hollow needle combined with a vacuum pump to grasp components. Here are some examples:

DIY Pick and Place Builds Boards, Is Awesome
Semi-automatic Pick and Place Goes Fully Automatic

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MattMoses
Andres, what you are describing is known as a "pick and place" machine. Many people have built their own. There's even a reprap subforum for it: Pick-and-Place Electronic Assembly

Typically they use a small hollow needle combined with a vacuum pump to grasp components. Here are some examples:

DIY Pick and Place Builds Boards, Is Awesome
Semi-automatic Pick and Place Goes Fully Automatic

Oh thank you. What tends to hold me back from knowing where to post the suggestion, is I don't know what's the name of the problem my suggestion is addressing. (I know, right? Not knowing the name doesn't sound like a big hurdle, but there's actually no way to find out unless someone tells me...)

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Andres Pena
Not knowing the name doesn't sound like a big hurdle

I know what you mean. Many times I have had some cool idea, only to find out later that it's a "Framstein's Widget" or whatever, well known for a hundred years...

I like to think that the phenomenon is similar to the idea of true name, wherein knowing the name of something gives you magical power over it...

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MattMoses
I know what you mean. Many times I have had some cool idea, only to find out later that it's a "Framstein's Widget" or whatever, well known for a hundred years...

I like to think that the phenomenon is similar to the idea of true name, wherein knowing the name of something gives you magical power over it...

Yeah, often I have that kind of cool idea, and it very often turns out to be known long ago. It's all hit and miss...

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/31/2014 08:48PM by Andres Pena.