SparkFun Forums

[CarlosO]

Hello All.
I'm working on a project to bring rapid prototyping to electronics. You can think of it as a 3D printer for circuits.

Instead of being a milling or etching machine, It uses conductive ink, conductive glue and a simplified Pick-and-Place system to create a board on different substrates, including paper and transparency film. The cost of manufacturing is as low as US$5 per board, and it can get a fully assembled circuit in around 30 minutes.

Our thesis is that engineers could develop devices much faster if they could prototype at low costs and really fast, like in software development. Agile development of electronics is where we believe our value is.

I would like to get your feedback, comments and questions on the idea.

We have a webpage, but we don't want to intrude and make you feel like we're spamming you. We're here for the feedback.

Thanks in advance.

Carlos

[skimask]

Ya, THAT's a new idea.....(no)

[Ross Robotics]

Think about current. With conductive ink, you wouldn't be able to do much. Not sure about the glue though, haven't study it.

To me, you're just wasting your time..

What some hobbyists want is a simple and affordable pick and place system that incorporates soldering.. Now that would be added to my wish list.

[CarlosO]

Think about current. With conductive ink, you wouldn't be able to do much. Not sure about the glue though, haven't study it.

To me, you're just wasting your time..

What some hobbyists want is a simple and affordable pick and place system that incorporates soldering.. Now that would be added to my wish list.

Current is clearly an issue, although the actual limit is much higher than what you'd expect. Because you can print several layers of conductive ink, one on top of another, you can create thick conductive traces that can drive enough current. We've tested circuits that drive over 1.5Amps and had no problems.

On the other hand, doing just picking-and-placing means that we would still need to wait for the board to be shipped from the board house. I don't know if this is a general situation, but in our case the boards take 10+ days to arrive. Often times, the board arrives when we already have a new version.

Could you explain a little bit further why do you think having an "all-in-one" machine is not worth pursuing?

[Ross Robotics]

I just don't trust conductive ink. Once you make a prototype and post a video of it in operation and post results of a few tests, then maybe you would change my mind as well as a few others.

[CarlosO]

Ok, I guess a video is worth a thousand words.
You can find information on the printer here: http://www.botfactory.co/product
I've just added a couple of videos to give you an idea of what can be done. Let me know if you have any comments

Carlos

[Ross Robotics]

Now that's what I call progress. I didn't realize you had a working machine. Maybe I just didn't read carefully.

Anyhow, I am now impressed. To see the machine actually drawing the circuits and placing components.

Questions:
Does it change tools automatically?
Is it based off of 3D printers? Gcode?

[CarlosO]

Awesome, you liked it!

We are not changing heads automatically yet. But we expect to have it working like that by October.
We're not using GCode, because we're using Gerber. It is optimized for circuits and made our lives easier.

I suspect adding GCode support shouldn't be that hard, but I'm not sure how that would be useful... maybe add a plastic extrusion head to turn it into a 3D printer? Was this your approach?

[Ross Robotics]

I was just curious of the software. So it's original? I am well versed in 3D printers with using Gcode and the hardware. I wasn't thinking about turning it into a 3D printer, but now that you mention it, it wouldn't be a bad idea. Although a lot of work would have to be done. I guess the frame and axis are already there, but you would have to implement an extruder, hot bed, and the software. Maybe a future add-on after the major release and production? Even offer it like an upgrade?

Please keep us informed of your progress. I am extremely interested now. The only downfall of designing custom PCBs is the turn-around time to get the board back.

If you are in need of testers, I would be glad to help. I would even pay for the machine/parts to help out. Shoot me an email if this interests you, trevor@rossrobotics.com

[CarlosO]

Hello Codlink, sorry I went silent for a while.
Your idea of coming up with an "upgrade" for a 3D printed has crossed our minds a couple of times. There are a couple of things holding us back in that matter.

1) Our machine uses direct transmission (no belts), so we can easily achieve higher precision and robustness, which is not the general case for 3D printers

2) There's so many 3D printers out there that would be really hard to come up with a product that will fit in most of them. We could focus on a couple though...

We'll continue thinking on ways we can deliver value to the community, but at this point we're more focused on optimizing the setup in our machine, thanks for your feedback!

If its not too much to ask, would you mind supporting us by allowing us to post ONE message on your facebook wall? It would allow us to create a synchronized wave of posts on the day of launching our Kickstarter. You just need to go to this link and click the facebook button
http://thunderclap.it/projects/13377-sq ... it-factory

We'll keep you posted!

[Ross Robotics]

Maybe you misunderstood my idea. I was thinking of turning your PCB prototyping tool into a 3D printer as an add-on or an upgrade. I agree that common 3D printers wouldn't have the accuracy to do PCBs that yours could do. So I agree that turning a 3D printer into a PCB tool would be useless.

I can let you post on my wall, but I am not a Facebook person or have friends on Facebook that would care about your design. But, I will let you because I believe your idea is awesome. If you ever start a campaign on Kickstarter, please let me know, I would purchase one on the first day!

UPDATE: I gave permission on Facebook and signed up to receive updates. Good Luck!

[AdrianJones]

Hi Carlos,

Sounds like a good idea. I'm involved in PCB Design Layout & something like your project would come in handy.
Do send me some details.

Thanks,
Adrian

[Pasch]

hi all
Any other ideas for rapid prototype pcb's?
Anything for home user, who like to make pcb in 30 min ?
thank you

[charlespax]

I think it would be good for all the random things that are not essential, but are convenient. For example, it would be nice to print out a breakout board rather than solder together on perfboard or similar. Especially if you need more than one.

I think we'll see a lot of innovation in the area of tomfoolery. When things become easy, cheap, and fast people come up with interesting new ideas.

Probably the biggest benefit is new people growing up with the perspective that they can quickly make any idea they have.