I was scoping around for some alternatives to the traditional PCB making... man is that such a hassle. I found this stuff and was wondering if anyone has tried it? It might be error prone with large curcuits but I think it would be good at least for prototyping... you could easily "connect the dots" on a perfboard with rings.
http://www.lashen.com/vendors/caig/CircuitWriter.asp
What I really would like is something like this that you can "trace" over a printed curcuit layout. I don't know what you would trace it onto... any non conductive material would work I suppose. I wonder if you could use that reflection tracing technique that I have seen done before.
Anyway... just a thought
Ok, now I'm just talking crazy here... I'm sure many of you have seen this stuff coming but it's new to me. Can you imagine printing conductive copies of the pcb layouts, glueing them onto some board, drill and go. That might be a slight exageration of what is to come.. but maybe not :)
http://www.xennia.com/XenniaVensConInkTech.htm
I'd be amazed if that technology filtered down to the kind of printers we use at home. :cry:
Just how good though, and can it be soldered etc.
I don't know...have they perfected solder 'paint'...I had some stuff like this that came with a 'cheep lighter based soldering gun' thingy I got at marcs...it came in a plastic tube, and didn't work very well IIRC.
The soldering gun itself fired once or twice then jammed...never tried melting anything with it...was pretty cool...it like turned a cheep lighter [installed in the 'handle] into a blast fire like welding torch [sorta]...my buddies got a nice rechargeable butane soldering torch...great for 'field' work.
Hey, Triffid, I think you might be onto something!
If you were to print out a copy of the PCB layout, trace the "traces" (nope, no pun intended) with that CircuitWriter pen, then quickly make an impression on a blank, you might basically be done because the board would have the correct "mirror image" of the circuit. Instead of going over traces with a Sharpie, we'd just be touching them up with that CircuitWriter. Of course, as Pete asks, is it solderable? That's the next question.
Can any of the board etchers confirm or deny this?
I would hate to rely on the dry time of the CurcuitWriter. I have seen on TV before an art tool for kids that was able to project an image onto a piece of paper without changing it's size. Then you could trace and color. I am not sure exactly how it worked, but I am looking for it now.
Worst case, you could use the CurcuitWriter after you soder your components onto the perfboard with rings (what are those called?). I think it would become easier to lay things out and not have to worry as much about positioning. Plus it would look a lot neater :)
Something like this, only this one is not meant for kids, is a little pricy, and you would have to find a way to mount it pointing down onto the surface.
http://store.artcity.com/aro-225354.html
Ok, I guess this is the one that is meant to be projected on a table top... it's even more expensive though. But you can probably use it for all sorts of things... box artwork, drill spots, etc...
http://store.artcity.com/aro-225323.html
Triffid:
You're losing me here. Why do you need to project anything? All I was suggesting was to print out the PCB layout "drawing", then trace over the circuit paths with the ink. What I meant to do then was to make an impression on the board with the tracing in the hope that an impression, thus a circuit pattern, would be left on the board.
Hmm... I think were losing each other :shock:
How would the impression end up on your finished board? If you are saying that you would trace the conductive ink onto the printout, then press that on the final board... I don't think that will be very reliable. The dry time on the ink is ~ 2 minutes I think. The clock would start with the first stroke. With a projection... you can take all the time you need and make sure you trace everything just perfectly... plus it would be COOL man :D
The question still remains though whether you can soder a component onto the board without effecting the conductive ink.
I've used the repair pens from Circuit Specialists before and while they work fairly well, you can not solder to the stuff.
There were quite a few cheap radios in the 1970s produced in Japan by some kind of screen printed and solderable ink. I remember seeing the mesh marks where coverage wasn't all the great. The same boards often had screen printed resistors too.
In the end, there's nothing like a board from a real board house. :)
Take care,
-Peter
OK, I follow you now. Yeah, good point about the dry time. As to the "solderability", the verbiage describing the product sure makes it look like you can solder it, doesn't it?
Quote from: DavidAll I was suggesting was to print out the PCB layout "drawing", then trace over the circuit paths with the ink. .
I suggest tracing over the path with wire, then you can solder to it! This is the basic 'cardboard' construction technique. If you consider that it is possible to run into trouble from normal PCB traces not having low enough resistance, I'm sure these ink & paint techniques won't hack it. Not to say they mign't be useful for other purposes though.
Ya, I was wondering about the resistance myself. Other pens I saw mentioned a 25 mOhm resistance per 1 inch. I figured that would be ok, but I'm not sure. I couldn't get an exact measurement for the pen mentioned above though.
How would you get the wire to stick nicely to the board in your "cardboard technique". I assume it would be non-insulated wire right?
Thanks for your guys replies, I am just trying to find a more convenient method then the transfer & etch approach... it just seems to messy and with too many steps :)
Re-calculating all the resistances and solder ink distances=resistances doesn't sound like alot of fun...prehaps two coats?
I am not sure if the manufacturer was stating milli-Ohms or micro-Ohms when they said 25mOhm, but I figured either one would be negligable in a small curcuit such as an effect pedal. If it is milli-Ohm you would of course have to have 40 inches of curcuit to have a combined 1 ohm. Maybe I am wrong about how much that would affect sound though :?
Either way I think I am going to try it, without the projector at first. I really think the most practicle application is to connect the pads on a perfboard.
Anyway... thanks for the help everyone
Quote from: Triffid"cardboard technique". I assume it would be non-insulated wire right?
The source of all wisdom (well, a lot!)
www.geofex.com/Article_Folders/ protostyles/proto_styles.htm
Quote from: Bill_FI'd be amazed if that technology filtered down to the kind of printers we use at home. :cry:
that would sure be nice...
+ I suggest, they make a drill-printer, that prints the "copper" and lasers the holes at one pass-through....
It is possible to ge vey thin flexible PCB material (it is used to make flexible 'wiring' harnesses among other things) and I have wondered whether it would be possible to print resist directly on this via a printer.
But being so thin, I think it might be a bitch to solder to, anyway.
I saw an ad about that super thin and flexible board material and it was interesting stuff. You can cut it with scissors, bend it and make curved and flexible boards with it, one suggested use was for mounting led displays and arrangements for curved surfaces like shop signs and like. Maybe a flexible guitar strap that has effects built in and some huge led message display...
Another idea must try someday is buy some thick copper foil and cut it with scissors for pcb patterns and glue/ laminate it on something :roll:
I hate to spoil the party (if I have), but you can't solder to conductive pen ink. If you did manage to get a solder joint on to it, it would be, at best, very "dodgy" (as they say in UK). This stuff is really for trace repair only.
There is an actual copper trace set copper traces and pads with one side sticky that you can use for repairs. You stick it down on the board and then you can drill thru it, solder to it, etc. As you can imagine, IMHO making a full circuit board from scratch with this would be much more difficult than etching. Again the intended purpose is for board repairs.
JD
Well, that is some what contradictory to what the manufacturer said. They did say that sodering at high temps could make things ugly, but sodering at low temps would be just fine. It probably depends on how good your soder technique is. I guess I assumed that to mean... 15 watts = OK, 30 watts = ugly :) Of course, I am not really going to know until I try.
OK, here's an idea.
*Print out the circuit board design.
*Glue it to carboard.
*Trace the circuit with the pen.
*Punch your holes.
*Solder in components
All done. It may be a worthy experiment.
Also... Even if you can't soder the conductive ink, what is preventing you from sodering the components in place first, then tracing your curcuit. This may take a little more planning, but it would still beat that darn etch process in my opinion.
That supposedly was conductive material that dries' ... I remem trying to work with it a little bit...It didn't do very well IIRC...Dunno if it's the same type stuuf tho.
I thought about doing this a while back. I got a sample of the conductive ink pen and tried soldering to it. the iron temp was high (not sure how high, but it was up there) and it made things messy. the ink melted or something and balled up with the solder. lower temp might be better. best would be to trace out the interconnects AFTER soldering. immediately after to assure a good bond between solder and ink.
i was worried about resistance of the ink itself. as long as the traces i drew were solid, resistance seemed minimal. i'd make the following suggestions:
1. keep traces as short as possible
2. use pad-per-hole board so that you're always going over a pad - keeps actual ink parts of the trace length down
3. use at least two layers of the ink.
the stuff dries very quickly. you can bake it to make it go even faster. I'm going to try it when i get the chance.
Aaron
I doubt you could ever solder to any conductive ink. But, all you would have to do is, put a metal tag in, and paint over the end of the tag & solder to the other end of the tag.
tried soldering to the conductive ink pen stuff today. i used the lowest temperature on the iron and it barely melted the solder. it DID stick to the ink, but not very well, and didn't make the ink just ball up and get absorbed into the solder or peel off the substrate. this worked as long as i didn't keep the iron on it long. Prolonged exposure even at low temperature always makes the ink desintegrate.
i still wouldn't solder to the ink though since the ink is kind of crumbly to begin with. you wouldn't want to mess with trying to get solder to stick to it.
Aaron
Have you tried sodering, then inking? Do you have contact problems that way?
no. doesn't look like there's an adhesion issue with ink on the solder. however, after soldering, i'd make sure there wasn't any flux residue or whatever on the board. best to clean with alcohol, possibly scrub a little with a scotchbrite pad just to get the surface as clean as possible.
update to this:
Im going to build my tremulus lune with a conductive pen. Here's my plan
1) draw a layout on perfboard using the PCB layout from commonsound
2) using a sharp blade, scratch that pattern into the pad side of the perfboard in order to show me where to draw and also improve adhesion
3) solder my components
4) draw the circuit in
5) bake it in an oven to improve adhesion of the ink
I did a test of baking and was able to get the resistance of the ink to about 0.15 ohms in the length between two *holes*. I did not have actual perfboard, which has large pads, so the actual resistance from pad to pad will be even less than 0.1 Ohms. negligible. Cant wait to get started on this. the layout is almost an exact fit already.
adhesion to both copper, solder, and board looks quite strong with a bake of >100ºC for a few minutes.
milli-Ohms can contribute to ground (-loop) problems...
a solution would then be to use an actual wire for the ground bus like you normally would on perf.
don`t know if it`s possible to "paste" a heap of solder on top of the ink,
but if so, that may help a lot;
in fact, I love to "thicken up" my ground ( & supply-) traces on real PCBs that way...
yes! it is!
i just tried it using the soldering iron at low temp - not conrolled, but just before it had heated up all the way. adhesion to conductive ink was way better than what i reported last time, not sure why. but you could definitely overlay important traces, like the ground bus and V+ with solder after the fact. Actually, once you've bridged all components with solder, adhesion of the solder to the ink and the ink to board is irrelevent.
in other words, it willwork great. just need low low temp soldering.
good to hear;
thanx for checking that out
- would really be an interesting alternative for experimental/proto circuits - ...
8)
the stuff seems to come off with a little acetone scrubbing. may work with other not-evil solvents too. but it seems like it's rigorous enough to put in a stomp box. at least one for myself. i'd never *sell* one or make on for someone else with this stuff though.
i had something similiar a while back. i thought it would help with a circuit i was trying to debug. my only concern was the one i used had warnings on it that said inhaling the fumes could be fatal! i haven't used it since and i made sure it's in a place where my kid would never find it.
i'm not convinced the tehnique suggested in this thread would be simpler than etching and drilling a board though.
well, everything is fatal if its in the correct dose. you DO know about dihydrogen monoxide dont you?
http://www.dhmo.org
fact is, there is so little solvent in the amount you put down when youre drawing, that its next to nothing. soldering is much worse for you.
seems to me like it *is* easier because i dont need a PCB kit - which has its own hazardous chemicals which are worse for my home than the solvents in the pen, and I dont need a drill press. just a layout that works. which you'd need anyway.
wouldnt do it for somehing like a EH electric mistress, but for something the size of the tremulus lune.....
heh :)
There used to be a product in the UK from Hornby Railways called solder paint for their digital Zero 1 control system. It was used to re-join tracks on the chips after they had been cut to assign a number to them. I don't know if it or something similar is still available. It was useful for joining thin sheet together as you could paint one side, press them together end then heat them with an iron, joining them together. Whether or not you could trace on a board with it I do not know. It was expensive for a small tube and the one I bought dried up very quickly once it had been opened.
Coincidence: I saw in a trade journal today that Epsom have been experimenting with conductive printing ink & have made a *fourteen layer* :shock: pcb, with alternating insulating ink layers!!
I hate to think how much a cc of THAT ink will cost :x
I think I'll still be using stripboard for a while yet.. I can imagine conductive printed PCBs being great for high impedance SMT work, though.
I wonder if it is possible to get powdered metal to stick to a photocopied trace on paper or cardboard? If you had metal powder spread on a surface, and put a photocopy or laser print face down & ironed hot enough to melt the toner, then the metal powder would stick to it!
Hope nobody has patented that! GO FOR IT :lol: MAD SCIENTISTS
hint: think nickel powder, most other metals have oxides on their surfaces or other problems.
yes, many are working on printable conductive inks. it's an entire mess getting traces conductive enough to be good. you need several printed layers of ink to get conductivity high enough for even the most basic use.
plus a multi thousand dollar machine with special print heads and hardware/software to make it.
it will probably never reach the level where you can buy a canon conductive ink print head and plug it into your regular desktop inkjet.
Ink is SUPER expensive. not for the DIYer.
Is this what you were talking about Triffid? - http://www.asseenontv.com/prod-pages/digi-draw.html?gid=KidsCorner
update-
I first started working with a Chemtronics pen - http://www.tselectronic.com/chemtronics/cw2200.html?tse_Session=8968b606d6be30ebbb1ca44798267d03 . Now i'm working with a Techspray brand pen http://www.intertronics.co.uk/products/tec2505.htm . The techspray is FAR better than the first one I was reporting on. Old stuff was more flaky, had a wider tip, and adhesion wasnt as good. Not that it was BAD, but the new stuff is better. So if you want to draw traces, I recommend the Techspray brand.
Anyway, the stuff is pretty low viscosity and even with the fine tip, you have to be careful when drawing traces on perfboard or they'll bleed everywhere! You need the gentlest of taps. If it does bleed, you need to wait till it dries a little bit first (when it's more vulnerable to flaking off) and then scratch it into shape with a razor. But otherwise it's pretty good.
You can definitely follow a PCB pattern, as I am doing with the Tremulus Lune. You can also definitely solder to it pretty well at low heat. Not sure how low because they dont provide a number on the datasheet. Just to be sure I'm going over junctions with the pen again.
Overall, because of the pad-per-hole board, you end up drawing a surprisingly little number of traces. not bad.
Curing at 150ºC for 5-10 minutes increases conductivity too.
I dont know if I'll be able to show pictures, but I'll try.
Aaron
Ok, I've got a picture of my Tremulus Lune board made with conductive ink traces on perfboard. It's mostly the drawn traces, but I used solid wire for the V+ and V-. Layout follows the PCB pattern on the commonsound website.
The pic is up on yahoo, hopefully no one is too interested and bandwith isnt exceeded :roll:
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/fuzz_a/detail?.dir=2fef&.dnm=1213.jpg&.src=ph
worked out well - kind of like half regular perf, half not. it's little messy, but it works and my technique can surely be improved.
Aaron
interesting!
Colin will like to see that, too...
thanks for the report, AaronK! this could open up DIY to people who for some reason are unable to solder. eg in grade school where there is fuss about using dangerous materials & equipment, plus it is safer to use a pen in bed than an iron!
I would have bet $$ it would not have worked, so I have definitely learnt something!
That looks promising. From the looks of it, the pen must have a very wide tip. Do these come with a finer tip?
Paul - well, i wouldnt go that far. You still need to solder the leads to the board and pots/jacks, and the components to the perfboard. also, the fumes are hazardous, but probably less so than solder fumes. There is also no lead. Still, i would not recommend doing this in bed!
javacody - yes, it is a surprisingly wide tip. It is narrower than the first pen i tried, but the material is such low viscosity that even a finer tip is not fine enough. I dont know if they have anything finer. surprising since it's made for repairing PCB's which have much finer traces than perfboards....
but the lune is up and running and it's the best and most versatile tremelo i've ever come across or imagined.
I'll add my build report to another thread.,..
Aaron