3d printing: 3d print a solderless circuit board

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Design and print the circuit board on the PLA filament printer, in which case it is the MakerBot Replicator 2.
The board consists of a tracking channel with a standard.
1 \"spacing and holes of the Assembly. 2-
The assembly is inserted into the board and the lead is bent. Pic2 3-
The trace channel is filled with conductive materials. Pic3.
In this example, I used a commercial conductive coating with high conductivity, but you can also use a conductive epoxy or make your own conductive material. See step 6.
The result is a working circuit board, which is not as vibration resistant as a welded circuit board, but is very useful for experimental circuits and prototypes.
There is no doubt that this requires some skills, the use of better conductive materials, and less skills.
While this will not soon replace the traditional welding circuit, it is the beginning of a fully automatic 3d printing circuit.
MakerBot Replicator 2 or other filament 3d printer.
You can also make it into shape.
Or other commercial 3d printers.
The stl files of the board are small in size and are quite cheap to print out by the service.
PLA fine silk eye dropper tip toothpick sandpaper conductive copper, copper-
Cote paint is available from: this is the most conductive, economical, and easy to use conductive material I have found.
You can also buy a conductive silver epoxy, but the price is more expensive.
Alternatively, you can make conductive glue or paint yourself. See step 6.
Picaxe 08 m single chip microcomputer 3 LEDs 3 resistors (see schematic)
I used the free program 123D Design--
Beta, but you should be able to do it with the latest version. Step 3 Pic-
Draw your design in 2d and make sure the walls are.
03 \"wide, tracking channel. 07\" wide. Pic2-
Extrusion drawings.
06 \"thick, that is, the depth of the conductive track channel that is later filled with conductive materials.
Add a front panel. 03\" thick.
Cut square holes for assembly. 07\" square.
I made mine too small and some had to be cleaned up with a drill bit.
With this small hole, a square hole is quite round when printing.
When printing, drawing a round hole here will close.
This simple circuit is a preliminary test of the whole technology.
You may want to try your own circuit, but if someone is familiar with the Picaxe micro-controller and wants to try this circuit, I have provided the STL file and the schematic.
Here is the simple Picaxe program code for flashing lights in sequence: loop2: high 1 pause 200 high 2 pause 200 high 4 pause 200 low 1 pause 200 low 2 pause 200 low 4 pause 200 goto loop2 print STL file raft 10% fill 2 case standard resolution. 2mm layers-
It takes about 8 minutes for standard resolution printing.
Fill the board with components and cut and bend on the lead, see step 5.
Make sure the lead does not stick above the channel wall.
Generally speaking, the longer the lead, the better the electrical connection.
It would be better if you could double the lead.
Glue the part I found, a dropper with a pipe and a small enough pipe is the easiest way to fill the channel with a conductive paint.
Fill them below the height of the wall and don\'t worry about spills and shorts.
I used toothpicks to find out the bubbles and made sure the leads were surrounded by paint well. See pic2.
Let it dry overnight at room temperature.
Conductive materials only have glue of light to medium strength on the lead of copper or tin plated plate assembly.
Therefore, care must be taken to ensure that the leads are bent and surrounded by conductive materials so that they have a strong mechanical connection.
Touch the trace that will shrink when the conductive material is dry.
Therefore, fill any holes, gaps or bubbles with fresh paint.
When the second layer coating is dry, use sandpaper on a flat surface to erase any conductive material that may shorten the trace from the wall.
The result is pic3.
The circuit has been completed and ready for testing.
Important note this conductive paint is water-based acrylic or latex paint and therefore is not allowed to be frozen.
While this is very affordable, you should be advised that copper particles treated with proprietary processes can resist oxidation.
Therefore, it may be a good idea to seal with silicone or other sealing materials that can prevent moisture or oxygen from entering after the whole circuit has been tested.
Embedding the whole part in silicone or epoxy can also prevent the part from moving and losing the connection under vibration or pressure.
Conductive epoxy, while more expensive, may work best for longer-lasting circuits as it is a stronger, more moisture-proof conductor.
Conductive materials made commercially, such as silver-filled epoxy or copper-
The base paint I use here is very conductive.
The conductive channel is. 07\" wide and . 06\" deep.
In this channel, the resistance of the conductive coating is about 1 ohm per inch.
You can make conductive materials yourself, but they have a higher resistance than commercial products.
In channels of this size, they usually have resistance of 200 ohms or more per inch.
So, if you try to do it yourself, it\'s a good idea to have the tracking Channel two or three times deeper to reduce the resistance.
Make conductive glue here are the details of how to make your own conductive glue: or here: Conductive rubber here are the details of how to make your own conductive rubber: or here: automatic 3d printed circuit board printing should be possible at some point, while printing plastic and welding or conductive materials, creating the complete circuit board in one or two prints.
Print the assembly bracket, insert the assembly, and then print the circuit board and conductive traces to connect the circuit together.
Circuit housing you can make a circuit that belongs to the equipment housing and antenna, and some small coils and high frequency antennas can be made into part of the equipment housing.
This method can also be used to manufacture low-value capacitors and high-voltage capacitors for capacitors.
The curved circuit board circuit can be manufactured as part of the device structure or housing.
For example, a circuit can be used as a part of a robot\'s \"skeleton\" or an external skeleton.
Step 7 figure shows the curved circuit board lantern that I made with a curved traditional circuit board: something similar can be printed in 3d.