Wirewrap type circuits.

I just had an idea (please tell me if it is original or not) :
Why not use copper wire despensed from a reel, through an auto-chopping head and onto reprapped posts? (and IC legs, component legs etc).

A PCB has milled/etched copper to make connections & a rigid insulator to mechanically support the components & connections.

THe FFF forms the board (forget double sided - you have 3 whole dimensions to play with), the copper wire is the tracks. You could even wind inductors, motor coils etc.

Not original. Friend of mine, Philip Goodman developed a system more or less like what you described in the 1970's and patented it. It never came to anything in that it couldn't handle the high frequency circuitry that came out a few years after the patent was filed and before he got the company properly off the ground.

Forrest, lots of wire wrap in the 70s - I had an IBM system/34 'minicomputer' that had wire wrapping all over the backplane cards that the CPU(s) where plugged into.
As you say, not good for HF but probably v good as a replacement for and etched PCB and saves mucking about with hot metal alloys in channels but Im sure they have a place in replication too)

I did actually try this. I could not get the wire to go around the edge of the wire pen! Humans instinctively tilt the pen, or draw the pen away from the wire-wrapping board (I used to be a "wire guy" for a day job). Trying to make a head that does it is a trifle harder, particularly if you want it to fit between the legs of a chip that have been wrapped in wire.

A wire head would be most useful for complex motor windings and so forth. But I think the main focus should be on getting the electronics done, and for that the metal extrusion head looks like it'll get there first.

Vik :v)

This would require a bit more precision than we have, but imagine a system with a small welding laser and an accurate wire feed. If the wire feed could lay the the exposed wire against a chip leg, then use the laser to spot weld the wire, it could then feed the wire off to the next leg...

oh, hang on. It's been done minus the laser, and it's called wire bonding. Maybe we can do that? Just have to scale it up a bit...

[en.wikipedia.org]

I could see this working with a lot of work. I'm too busy churning out RepRap Power Rings myself at the moment, but we'll see!

Wade

Hi Wade,

i did some wirebonding with a 'cheap' manual system (price ~10.000Euros) and it's a hard fiddling until you get the parameters for temperature, pressing force and ultrasonic energy.

I bonded with 17 micron and 25 micron gold-wire, what's the 'easiest' process - with thicker wires you have mostly more problems until the process runs ...

Better look in the direction of spot-welding - charge some big capacitors, press a small piece of copper over your wire and shortcut the capacitors through the wire-/copper-/surface-junction. With the right parameters the melting area melts the wire but is covered by the piece of copper, so it didn't rip up the wire ...

Viktor