3D printed Circuit boards

Yep.. It's almost here..

http://3dprintingindustry.com/2013/1...-precise-kick/

Have you been following the progress of their Kickstarter? Seems interesting. I wonder if there will be a day in which regular FDM 3d printers will be able to incorporate 3d printed circuit boards all in one piece. I would assume something like this would not be all that difficult to do. You would jut need duel extruders, one for the board and one for the FDM plastics. Technology is progressing at an almost scary pace right now, and that pace just continues to speed up.

This is something that I find to be extremely exciting in 3D Printing. Once circuit boards can be printed, we could start seeing full electronics being printed. Imagine printing yourself an iphone in 15 years from now.

These guys are making circuits with inkjet printers...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0AHc3CA9NU

Steve S

These look very good. It's an interesting theory to print them using ink jet. I think that 3D printings next big leap will be the ability to let anyone print the personalized circuit boards. We will then be able to build our own custom electronics from the ground up. However, I don't think it'll be available mainstream for some time now.

This will also be good for the environment. Printed circuit boards printed traditionally produce a significant amount of very hazardous byproducts and waste. Think of printing circuits inside of something in the way that only a FDM processes can achieve? Very interesting.

Here is a new company that is printing items with circuits in them. I was amazed when I saw this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mS6-Tzjeths

It's a company named Rabbit Proto, and they sell a print head that plugs into your 3d printer and then prints the circuits. They are taking preorders right now.

The source code for this as well as documentation and example designs are open source and available on GitHub.

This rabbit proto thing looks to have some potential. I wonder if they have patents for this technology.

Hi, You may try pcbmaking.com to get your job done quickly and effectively. It gives big discount on various PCB and also FREE shipping.

Thanks annakaplonskaya for the link above. They seem like a great resource for PCB's and they do both rigid and flexible PCB's. Have you used them or are you just relaying the site address? If you've used them can you say a few sentences about your experience and project with them?