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3d printed PCB
Posted: Mon Jan 05, 2015 6:54 pm
by bubbasnow
Re: 3d printed PCB
Posted: Mon Jan 05, 2015 6:58 pm
by jdurand
and...?
Re: 3d printed PCB
Posted: Tue Jan 06, 2015 3:25 am
by Eaglezsoar
What?
Re: 3d printed PCB
Posted: Tue Jan 06, 2015 10:15 am
by BenTheRighteous
I thought that was cool. Although I noticed that when the print head lifts while laying down a trace, it leaves a spike of material behind. I wonder if that could become a problem, introducing shorts into the circuit.
My favorite part of the video was the motorcycles outside of the Autodesk building...

Re: 3d printed PCB
Posted: Tue Jan 06, 2015 11:48 am
by jdurand
video?
Re: 3d printed PCB
Posted: Tue Jan 06, 2015 11:53 am
by BenTheRighteous
What's the problem here? Are you guys not seeing anything in bubbas post?
Re: 3d printed PCB
Posted: Tue Jan 06, 2015 11:56 am
by KAS
While it's certainly neat to see the the constant changes and different abilities of additive printing, I don't see this anymore than a hobbyist niche market.
In regards to mass production, It is much faster to design a printed circuit board and a matching enclosure to fit the purpose. Troubleshooting and component replacement would be a nightmare when the electronics are printed within the structure. Even if it was cheap enough to trash the errors, the pure lack of speed this style of printing would induce into the manufacturing process would definitely be an issue.
Honestly It's not like they are printing traces worthy of SMD related sizes. I see this as something that each of us can do now without the needs of this magical conductive sauce. Design your print to incorporate wire traces/paths and script a pause processes that allows for manual part placement.
but anyways, I do like seeing new or even different tech being worked on.
Re: 3d printed PCB
Posted: Tue Jan 06, 2015 12:05 pm
by Mac The Knife
You overlooked prototyping.
Re: 3d printed PCB
Posted: Tue Jan 06, 2015 12:08 pm
by jdurand
BenTheRighteous wrote:What's the problem here? Are you guys not seeing anything in bubbas post?
Just blank.
Re: 3d printed PCB
Posted: Tue Jan 06, 2015 12:10 pm
by BenTheRighteous
Code: Select all
[quote="bubbasnow"][youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbm2SSql8V8[/youtube][/quote]
Try quoting the post I guess? There's definitely a youtube link there. Maybe you're running a script-blocking addon or something.
Re: 3d printed PCB
Posted: Tue Jan 06, 2015 12:20 pm
by KAS
jdurand wrote:BenTheRighteous wrote:What's the problem here? Are you guys not seeing anything in bubbas post?
Just blank.
Interesting, try changing your forum theme to the dark default theme. You should see a YouTube video.
Re: 3d printed PCB
Posted: Tue Jan 06, 2015 12:23 pm
by jdurand
BenTheRighteous wrote:Code: Select all
[quote="bubbasnow"][youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbm2SSql8V8[/youtube][/quote]
Try quoting the post I guess? There's definitely a youtube link there. Maybe you're running a script-blocking addon or something.
Odd, doesn't SAY it's blocking anything on this page. On other forums YouTube links work fine, but then I have strange picture displays here too. There's something about this particular forum that doesn't mesh well with my browser.
Mozilla Firefox for Ubuntu
canonical - 1.0
version 34.0
Re: 3d printed PCB
Posted: Tue Jan 06, 2015 1:41 pm
by BenTheRighteous
I'm on 34.0.5 Firefox straight from Mozilla, on Linux Mint 16 (blech, I don't know why I picked that when I was reinstalling my pc, Fedora 4 lyfe!).
I do get the warning bar across the top of the screen that says it blocked Adobe Flash until I click the Allow button, but at least it shows a big grey box where the video is supposed to be indicating that something's missing.
Re: 3d printed PCB
Posted: Tue Jan 06, 2015 1:43 pm
by BenTheRighteous
Re: 3d printed PCB
Posted: Tue Jan 06, 2015 3:04 pm
by Tonkabot
I think it is very cool and has got my mind going... I design and layout circuit boards for a living, and prototyping a low quantity is always 10x to 100x the piece cost of production quantities, plus it takes a couple 3 weeks [ assuming you have a board house do it, which for a lot of SMT is pretty much the only way you'll get decent boards].
Another thought was you could make a real, many layered 3d circuit, instead of just on one or two sides of a circuit board.
My first thought was that they were using actual solder. Then the implication that is some low temp magic silver paste.
But I think you could do actual solder, or actual real solder paste [ although that would require reheating which the plastic wouldn't like the solder temperature].
Another thought is to just take a bare circuit board and let the 3d 'printer' lay down real solder paste, and then pick and place the components.
after that you run through a reflow oven (people have made decent ones out of toaster ovens that have actual reflow temp curves).
This would greatly reduce cost of those first few prototypes - you eliminate the solder stencil paste step (which if you have done by hand you know is error prone.) and then the part placement which needs to have accuracy of about 0.015in or so or better which it seems like a delta bot can do easily. It also has to be able to rotate the parts (or pick them up from where they are rotated correctly).
Now I have yet another distraction to think about ....
of course google is your friend:
http://reprap.org/wiki/SMT_Pick-n-Place_System
Re: 3d printed PCB
Posted: Tue Jan 06, 2015 4:31 pm
by Generic Default
I was thinking the same thing during the video. It's cool, and a step forward, but I saw a similar video of a reprap machine doing this in like 2009.
The software will be nice to have (assuming it doesn't cost hundreds or thousands, which it probably will). The machine looks pretty good, but it's just a multi-extruder machine like many of us already have. I thought from the title that this thing would be capable of printing components; it can only print big traces. And there is no pick and place function, which I thought would be relatively easy to put in. Cool to see this stuff, but kind of disappointing.
I hope they sell the material and software for a decent price on the open market.
Re: 3d printed PCB
Posted: Tue Jan 06, 2015 6:30 pm
by barry99705
Re: 3d printed PCB
Posted: Thu Jan 08, 2015 9:26 am
by johnoly99
Take another look at the video and see if you notice anything about the hotend

Re: 3d printed PCB
Posted: Thu Jan 08, 2015 12:18 pm
by Mac The Knife
johnoly99 wrote:Take another look at the video and see if you notice anything about the hotend

Sweet!!! Why waste time reinventing the wheel?
Re: 3d printed PCB
Posted: Fri Jan 09, 2015 4:52 pm
by Eaglezsoar
Could you explain what you see about the hot end?
I have watched it 3 times and do not see anything.
Re: 3d printed PCB
Posted: Fri Jan 09, 2015 6:09 pm
by bubbasnow
Eaglezsoar wrote:Could you explain what you see about the hot end?
I have watched it 3 times and do not see anything.
its seemecnc hotend
Re: 3d printed PCB
Posted: Fri Jan 09, 2015 6:32 pm
by Captain Starfish
Cool idea, as already mentioned I reckon more for the hobbyists as an alternative to "my first crystal set" with the components jammed into springs.
I'm laying out a board at the moment with 0.5mm tracks spaced 0.25mm apart and they're fat. I don't see this working for modern parts with their 100 micron tracks and 80 micron spacing on multiple layers with the precision alignment and bonding of components required.
Which is a shame, because the requirements for PCB production have gone past what I can do with a little bubble etch tank and UV exposure box, and way beyond what most little CNC pcb printer mill things can do reliably. And sending off for prototype manufacturer is slow and damned expensive.
Re: 3d printed PCB
Posted: Fri Jan 09, 2015 6:55 pm
by Eaglezsoar
bubbasnow wrote:Eaglezsoar wrote:Could you explain what you see about the hot end?
I have watched it 3 times and do not see anything.
its seemecnc hotend
They don't even show the hotend in that video. I can see why I missed it.
It is great that they are using the SeeMeCNC hotend though.
Re: 3d printed PCB
Posted: Fri Jan 09, 2015 8:09 pm
by Mac The Knife
Eaglezsoar wrote:bubbasnow wrote:Eaglezsoar wrote:Could you explain what you see about the hot end?
I have watched it 3 times and do not see anything.
its seemecnc hotend
They don't even show the hotend in that video. I can see why I missed it.
It is great that they are using the SeeMeCNC hotend though.
It's in there,,,,, you just have to be quick.
Re: 3d printed PCB
Posted: Fri Jan 09, 2015 8:17 pm
by Mac The Knife
At .56, and at 1.51. And they're using two ceramic heaters!!!! How many times have I been told I don't need two?