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Silver Pen Allows For Hand-Written Circuits

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the pen-is-mighter-than-the-soldering-gun dept.

Zothecula writes "People have been using pens to jot down their thoughts for thousands of years but now engineers at the University of Illinois have developed a silver-inked rollerball pen that allows users to jot down electrical circuits and interconnects on paper, wood and other surfaces. Looking just like a regular ballpoint pen, the pen's ink consists of a solution of real silver that dries to leave electrically conductive silver pathways. These pathways maintain their conductivity through multiple bends and folds of the paper, enabling users to personally fabricate low-cost, flexible and disposable electronic devices."

5 of 161 comments (clear)

  1. Not slashdot too! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    These things have been around for decades, fuck knows why this is suddenly news.

    1. Re:Not slashdot too! by Anon-Admin · · Score: 3, Insightful

      No kidding! Heck, 25 years ago My self and a friend used a felt tip one to draw a set of lines on a wooden fence. A set of nails and alligator clip wires and a little hacker engineering and we had the neighbors phone line on the window sill. Worked ok for about 2 weeks, provided it was not raining. Then it broke down enough that it did not work.

  2. Not really new... by drussell · · Score: 1, Insightful

    This is not really new stuff... Silver pens for "circuit repair" have been available for ages... They made a ballpoint version.

  3. What's next? I'll tell you what's next... by h1q · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What's next from these ingenious companies?

    A patent of course.

  4. I am surprised by Osgeld · · Score: 3, Insightful

    They didn't claim to invent the fucking paper too

    as others have pointed out this has been around for decades, and you can make your own ghetto version using copper radiator repair solution