Rabbit Proto, Integrated 3D Printed Circuitry

I was quite amazed to see this latest technology from Rabbit Proto. I certainly believed something like this was in the pipeline, but didn't expect to see integrated 3d printed circuitry anytime this year. Rabbit Proto, this week introduced a new open source extruder capable of fitting onto any Rep Rap dual extruder printer, and printing out a conductive ink. The ink can be printed during any printing process. The system makes it possible to print objects with integrated circuitry, all in one print without the need of having to switch print heads or any of that hassle.

http://3dprint.com/2674/rabbit-proto...ted-circuitry/

They are currently selling several packages which can be viewed in the link above. The technology is totally open source so you can pretty much build it yourself if you are capable. The files are located on Github. Here is an interesting video of what the Rabbit Proto is capably of printing:

http://youtu.be/4F5M9YQWBhM

This changes everything. This is what could lead to 3D printable electronics like smartphones, tv remotes, and anything you can imagine!

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Originally Posted by BurnItDownBaby

This changes everything. This is what could lead to 3D printable electronics like smartphones, tv remotes, and anything you can imagine!

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There is a very, very, veeeeeery long distance to go from basically printing wiring to a smartphone, there is a reason why semiconductor factories are enormous facilities costing billions of dollars.

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Originally Posted by CaptainObvious

There is a very, very, veeeeeery long distance to go from basically printing wiring to a smartphone, there is a reason why semiconductor factories are enormous facilities costing billions of dollars.

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CaptainObvious - do you consider yourself a pessimist or a realist? ;-)

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Originally Posted by mkapras

CaptainObvious - do you consider yourself a pessimist or a realist? ;-)

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Realist, if you see all the processes involved in integrated circuit manufacturing you'd understand why the idea of desktop 3D printer that can create anything, from a coffee mug to a smartphone is not a realistic one.

It's one thing to create conductive traces on a substrate, a very trivial one thing actually, but actual circuitry of the size and sophistication requiered for a microprocessor or a memory chip? I don't see it.
I think crude and bulky logical circuits are not impossible, like printing a dozen or so logic gates on a 1cm^2 area, that could be done I guess. But when you get down to the technology needed to print millions upon millions of transistors and logic gates in the same spot, with a machine that needs to also do all the other threedeeprintee stuff, now way Jose; just think of the ultra clean environment needed to create chips, the mind bogglingly pure crystals needed for semiconductors, how do you create such an environment inside a 3D printer that hypothetically would seat in the desktop of your average Joe? A speck of dust can ruin a chip after all.

Then how would you print a battery for the phone? it's an electrochemical device, a metallic electrode and a liquid (or semiliquid) electrolite; the printer would need to be stocked up with half the periodic table of elements too, in fact it would have to be something like a molecular manipulator rather than what we think of as a 3D printer.

At best I can envision a future were there would be molecular assemblers, using self replicating chemistry to in fact create something not very different from a living thing, after all we see every day the results of very sophisticated organic machinery building the most amazing structures, but it wouldn't be anything like the technology we use today.

Rabbit Proto founder here, and I can give you some background elements about what led us to think that this particular concept was the best to get out there right now from a technology standpoint.

The project started actually looking at bringing a prototyping platform for Printed Electronics (let's call this PE). PE is huge both on the research side (printed microprocessors are happening since 2011) and the industry side. Chemical companies are massively investing in R&D for this as they see two things, a generalization of the use of this technology for massive production of touch panels & solar panels among for example as well as a continuing number of consumer electronic devices (high grossing applications) that take advantage of the unique properties of functional inks.

What we found very interesting and a potential game changer was the second application. We talked to dozens of people to confirm that this was actually a need and we started looking for existing solutions, and to our surprise there was not really anything out there at the time. So we started experimenting with 3D printing of plastics and silver filled silicone RTV in April 2012 and that was the beginning of what would become Rabbit Proto. Silver was great in terms of conductivity but super expensive and in the absence of a pick and place system we had to put components by hand inside our 3d printed objects and then lay down the trace. So we went through a reduction exercise and we realized that materials like conductive graphite paste could avoid the use of components if we limited ourself at first the printing of capacitive sensors. Our approach right now is to go to more complex 3D printed geometries (anatomically correct for example) with embedded sensing and interactivity using the conductive material. If new materials were to be found to be useful in the future, the syringe would allow users to be able to switch between multiple functional materials.

Lastly instead of designing a $100 000 machine, we chose the RepRap way and thought that progressively open-sourcing it would be a nice way to get the project a community of application developers and a good way to give back to the community that gave us the machines and electronics we are using.

Hope this helps, and we love feedback and suggestions!

Hopes this clarifies things!

Alex, this is simply a remarkable way to 3D print. What is the most complex piece you guys have printed so far? What else are you guys working on to further this technology?

Also when will the first Rabbit Proto units begin shipping?

I just found this conductive filament and would love to try it out. http://makergeeks.com/co3dfi.html

I guess it only would make sense if you had multiple extruders or could figure out how to print the wiring on a single or a few planes.

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Originally Posted by innovestment

I just found this conductive filament and would love to try it out. http://makergeeks.com/co3dfi.html

I guess it only would make sense if you had multiple extruders or could figure out how to print the wiring on a single or a few planes.

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Keep in mind that, while it is conductive, it has a very high electrical resistance; if you put a relatively high current through it things may start to catch fire.
On the video comments they state the conductivity of the filament is 104 Ohms/cm compared with 0.0328084 Ohms/cm for copper, that's over 3000 times higher resistance. I suppose you could light up a LED using it, or wire some sensors, but powering a motor, for example is not going to work well.

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Originally Posted by CaptainObvious

Keep in mind that, while it is conductive, it has a very high electrical resistance; if you put a relatively high current through it things may start to catch fire.
On the video comments they state the conductivity of the filament is 104 Ohms/cm compared with 0.0328084 Ohms/cm for copper, that's over 3000 times higher resistance. I suppose you could light up a LED using it, or wire some sensors, but powering a motor, for example is not going to work well.

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Wow, with that kind of resistance, it's going to take a lot of voltage to even get much current to flow. I guess the application is going to be mainly for signal lines and low powered-sensors.

@innovestment and CaptainObvious The conductive filament has a lot of advantages structurally but it is true that conductivity wise it is not made for power electronics. Our graphite based material is a little better, and silver or silver-coated particle pastes are great conductivity wise. Another interesting (and crazy) material idea came up when we were discussing with some testers, as they were thinking about some cool bio-materials that could be put inside the syringe of the rabbit (fluorescent bacterias, some that also react to a voltage potential).

@Larry: we have two main side of complexity with our prints, on the physical 3D side, anatomically correct pieces with scanned body parts that also can embed sensors are challenging, think about wearable interfaces.
On the circuit side wait for our next demo :).
About next steps for us, we want to create a community of people that will help shape the future of the technology and fuel us with cool ideas of designs and applications. We are a sort of catalyst providing the hardware as well as opportunities to have these ideas emerge, and this is one of the reason we made the choice to be an open-source project.
Lastly about us sending the extruders, we need to work out some details, will try to get it done ASAP to get people to start playing with the machine and create awesome content.

Wow, with that kind of resistance, it's going to take a lot of voltage to even get much current to flow. I guess the application is going to be mainly for signal lines and low powered-sensors.