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Xerox Claims Printable Electronics Breakthrough
adeelarshad82 writes "Xerox announced a new silver ink that it's calling a breakthrough in printable electronics, a leading-edge concept that's generated a lot of discussion but few actual products to date. Why? Precisely because of the issues that Xerox claims to have addressed. In concept, printable electronics is just what it sounds like: using a printer, basically an inkjet, to print electronic circuits. If this can be done reliably, electronic devices can be printed for far less than current methods cost. One can also print the devices on a variety of new materials. The possibilities range from printing on flexible plastic, to paper and cardboard, to fabric."
You can encode the document and its signature into a barcode. And you can do it today, very cheaply.
So, possibly time to start investing in silver? If they use it as stated, a lot of silver may bet get dumped into landfills as part of trash packaging.
"Common sense will be the death of us all"
The bulk of servicing cost is labour, and when you're doing the labour, fixing stuff can still be cheaper. ;-)
Not just servicing, but hacking and such is going to be a lot more of a pain if the traces vaporize when you look at them sideways.
I'm not sure what this is marketed as, for prototyping? Fast prototypes would be nice. But the vast majority of electronics are mass produced stuff, where the physical cost of the PCB is a small portion of the overall circuitry, with components, labour, and R&D being the real cost. I can't see printing traces of silver being cheaper than the existing methods. Maybe I'm missing something.
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I'd love to prototype on something like this. But I doubt if the actual output off an inkjet would work beyond the first time I sneeze over it.
Honestly, in some sense I got into software rather than electronics because it was so hard to experiment with electronics freely. This could lower that barrier for hobbyists & more importantly, kids. It needn't last through the weekend, but if it works and you can see it work, it's enough.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur
From the article:
Great, just what I want: Having my clothes turned into a spamming device.
There are certainly countless examples of how wearable electronics could be put to good use, but the first thing they think of is advertising. Very telling, I'd say.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Any electronics device *can* be serviced or repaired. The issue is cost and difficulty of the repair itself. In many cases it is simply too difficult to replace a failed component or too costly. In your camera example, it could be a component buried deep inside the camera on a small PCB which is not easily accessible. It may take a technician an hour or more to disassemble the camera into a few hundred pieces to get access to the failed component. That is certainly a more expensive operation than replacement of the device.
As a result, many electronic devices made today are effectively disposable. The cost involved to fix them just isn't justified. As an EE, I do try to repair my own devices if they are out of warranty coverage, but sometimes the effort required is just not worth it. It's far easier and cheaper to replace in many cases.
Being able to print the circuit is all well and good, but presumably it's literally just the underlying circuit and components still need to be attached? I'm guessing you can't just print a resistor, a transistor, an IC chip or something?
If I'm correct in this assumption, presumably this technology doesn't really open any new doors in terms of what can be created, only makes the process for testing and eventually producing circuit designs cheaper and possibly quicker?
THAT is exactly the point, IMO. We're at the threshold of not only being able do download pirated software, but ALSO being able to download the hardware to run it on.
Wow. That HP ink costs 70 times more than crude oil. This is why I bought a laserprinter rather than an inkjet. The initial cost is high, but the ink is your typical photocopier toner, and can last 5000 or more pages. After you pass the first 800 pages the laserprinter is actually cheaper overall.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Hmmm, if Xerox gets its way with a monopoly razor-blade like business in printable solder, ink won't be cheap.
Electronics are going to be even more of a pain in the ass to service.
When integrated circuits were first invented, engineers scoffed. "How would you replace a part in one?" not realizing how cheap the "parts" would be. This is the same thing. TFA says, for example, that today an RFID chip costs a dollar, while this tech would reduce the cost to a penny.
You don't service them any more than you repair a burned out light bulb.
I can't see it being terribly reliable either.
If TVs were a dollar each I wouldn't care how unreliable they were. But TFA covers this too -- until this new tech you needed a clean room.
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