3D-Printed Circuit Boards, For Solder-Free Printable Electronics

An anonymous reader writes "Check out the latest success of the OpenSCAD 3d-printed electronics library. To use it, you just need a 3D printer and some conductive thread. OpenSCAD generates a component holder, and conductive thread wraps it all together — no solder, no etching chemicals, no sending out for anything. The instructable takes you through all the steps from schematic to circuit, and includes a more useful example: the fully printed LED flashlight."

Comments

For those that think this is "clunky"

[p51d007]

You are obviously too young to remember vacuum tubes. I have been working in electronics since the early 70's as a kid, tv shops in the mid-late 70's. I have watched circuits shrink over the years, from no circuit board (point wired tv chassis), to huge printed circuit board, to the switch over from tubes to transistors (and the RCA nuvistor), then onto LSI chips. A 25" color TV use to take two strong men to lift & move around. Now, a housewife can hang one on a wall. Given time, the 3d printing will shrink also.

Re:Opening new ways to generate a PCB

[michael_cain]

Any time you mention "solder", remember the temps involved and that the plastic structure used in the construction has to withstand those temperatures. Standard FR4 printed circuit board material (fiberglass reinforced, non-reversible heatset resin) is remarkably tough stuff. Even the most heat-resistant thermoplastics the industrial 3D printing suppliers are making available are questionable for standard soldering temperatures. And it's not clear that the hobbyist printers can produce the temperatures necessary to work with those higher-melting-point thermoplastics.