3 ms·

I mis-read the title, thought it’s about 3D printing the PCBs. That’s something easily achievable and useful to hobbyists like myself.

marcosdumay 6y ago
That's relatively easily achievable, a stepping stone on the path to ICs, and serves a large market that already exists. Yet, I think there are no commercial offers, and no companies focused on building it (differently from ICs). Go figure.
- joshvm 6y ago
  This does somewhat exist for commercial 3D printed PCBs (not ICs) : https://www.lpkf.com/en/industries-technologies/electronics-manufacturing/3d-mids-with-laser-direct-structuring-lds https://www.lpkf.com/en/industries-technologies/electronics-... LPKF sell a funky machine which will deposit 3D traces onto a printed part. We have one of these in a lab at our uni, along with a lot of other expensive LPKF kit, but it's so specialised that I doubt anyone ever uses it. They have lots of interesting demo parts made with it, the obvious use case is antennas that are embedded in the enclosure.
  - marcosdumay 6y ago
    I was thinking more on the line of cheap one-off PCBs that you send from your computer and take from the machine in an hour or two, like what hobbyists are doing. This one is so much cooler but more expensive too. I hope they find some large market to grow into.
    - joshvm 6y ago
      Yeah LPKF's stuff is very high end. I'm 99% sure the only reason we have any of their machines is that someone had a massive budget to blow with a tight deadline. Or they had no idea what they were buying and got sweet talked by a rep. Or they absolutely knew what they were buying and someone high up just signed off on it. We also have stuff like Metal 3D printers which are six-figures, so why not? The problem with using is that it's so expensive, so nobody is allowed to use it without training. Everyone else just submits jobs to the mech workshop and they'll etch it for you. But.. when you think that a one-day turnaround on a small run of PCBs can cost easily $500+ if you need weird requirements, these sorts of machine can start to save money. They can do tolerances below most of the cheap fab houses (like BGA fanout, RF parts, etc). PCBTrain will charge you £400 for a 2-day turnaround on a 50x50mm 2 layer board! At home I don't know why you'd want to 3D print a circuit versus milling or laser exposing it. You can get cheap mills with decent tolerances these days [1]. Of course LPKF also sell these sorts of machines with absurd tolerances and high prices! In theory you can use conductive filament and a multi-material printer. One use case for that is actually making custom RF shields. Otherwise the only 3D printed circuits I've seen are kind of cheating - either using the printer to make the etch mask, or by printing channels which you can fill with conductive paint or epoxy (those are nice though). [1] https://wegstr.com/CNC-Wegstr-(English) https://wegstr.com/CNC-Wegstr-(English)
      - marcosdumay 6y ago
        > At home I don't know why you'd want to 3D print a circuit versus milling or laser exposing it. I have absolutely no requirement on an additive process. I also don't think "home" will net enough of a market, it's more for "design house". What I think is missing is some box you can buy where you just add the material, send the design from a computer and an hour later you have a usable PCB. CNC mills do kinda solve the problem, on its most basic form. But it is very common that one would need at least two layers, and it would be a huge add-on if it could apply masks and silk. The mills are also not that well packaged for the job - it would make a lot of difference if it would just be enclosed. But anyway, that's in no way a rant about the market or anything like that. It's just that it's unsettling to see somebody jump all the way into ICs when solving the same problem on an easier level is already a useful product.
  - hwillis 6y ago
    Ben Krasnow actually did this at home! https://youtu.be/Tx2B5hI4w1U https://youtu.be/Tx2B5hI4w1U
sebazzz 6y ago
Thomas Sanladerer had a video on this, essentially using the 3d printer as a plotter for PCBs. It creates an mask but the usual etching process is still there. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sL0LZFcNaow https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sL0LZFcNaow
hwillis 6y ago
Well, two layer anyway. People have printed overlapping traces into 3d printed volumes before, but it's a very flawed process. High currents are basically out of the question (resistance too high), analog voltages are very hard (inconsistent resistance), complex circuits struggle with connecting traces, and high speed circuits struggle with grounding/shielding. It's possible to achieve shockingly good results by electroplating (https://youtu.be/Tx2B5hI4w1U https://youtu.be/Tx2B5hI4w1U) but there are heavy caveats. There isn't really a process that approaches pcbs in a single area, much less all of them. Unfortunately that's more limiting than you'd expect- even very cheap ARM processors will probably be unstable without a ground plane and low resistance traces. I hear there's some interesting stuff coming in 2021 (can't tie rumors to my real name) and lots of people are working on this kind of thing, but the solutions are non-obvious. SLA is having a lot of trouble because it's hard to include a lot of conductive powder without degrading resin quality (and worse, it blocks the light), sintered stuff struggles with mixed powders, and resin stuff struggles with density and continuous lines/planes.

marcosdumay 6y ago

That's relatively easily achievable, a stepping stone on the path to ICs, and serves a large market that already exists. Yet, I think there are no commercial offers, and no companies focused on building it (differently from ICs). Go figure.

joshvm 6y ago
This does somewhat exist for commercial 3D printed PCBs (not ICs) : https://www.lpkf.com/en/industries-technologies/electronics-manufacturing/3d-mids-with-laser-direct-structuring-lds https://www.lpkf.com/en/industries-technologies/electronics-... LPKF sell a funky machine which will deposit 3D traces onto a printed part. We have one of these in a lab at our uni, along with a lot of other expensive LPKF kit, but it's so specialised that I doubt anyone ever uses it. They have lots of interesting demo parts made with it, the obvious use case is antennas that are embedded in the enclosure.
- marcosdumay 6y ago
  I was thinking more on the line of cheap one-off PCBs that you send from your computer and take from the machine in an hour or two, like what hobbyists are doing. This one is so much cooler but more expensive too. I hope they find some large market to grow into.
  - joshvm 6y ago
    Yeah LPKF's stuff is very high end. I'm 99% sure the only reason we have any of their machines is that someone had a massive budget to blow with a tight deadline. Or they had no idea what they were buying and got sweet talked by a rep. Or they absolutely knew what they were buying and someone high up just signed off on it. We also have stuff like Metal 3D printers which are six-figures, so why not? The problem with using is that it's so expensive, so nobody is allowed to use it without training. Everyone else just submits jobs to the mech workshop and they'll etch it for you. But.. when you think that a one-day turnaround on a small run of PCBs can cost easily $500+ if you need weird requirements, these sorts of machine can start to save money. They can do tolerances below most of the cheap fab houses (like BGA fanout, RF parts, etc). PCBTrain will charge you £400 for a 2-day turnaround on a 50x50mm 2 layer board! At home I don't know why you'd want to 3D print a circuit versus milling or laser exposing it. You can get cheap mills with decent tolerances these days [1]. Of course LPKF also sell these sorts of machines with absurd tolerances and high prices! In theory you can use conductive filament and a multi-material printer. One use case for that is actually making custom RF shields. Otherwise the only 3D printed circuits I've seen are kind of cheating - either using the printer to make the etch mask, or by printing channels which you can fill with conductive paint or epoxy (those are nice though). [1] https://wegstr.com/CNC-Wegstr-(English) https://wegstr.com/CNC-Wegstr-(English)
    - marcosdumay 6y ago
      > At home I don't know why you'd want to 3D print a circuit versus milling or laser exposing it. I have absolutely no requirement on an additive process. I also don't think "home" will net enough of a market, it's more for "design house". What I think is missing is some box you can buy where you just add the material, send the design from a computer and an hour later you have a usable PCB. CNC mills do kinda solve the problem, on its most basic form. But it is very common that one would need at least two layers, and it would be a huge add-on if it could apply masks and silk. The mills are also not that well packaged for the job - it would make a lot of difference if it would just be enclosed. But anyway, that's in no way a rant about the market or anything like that. It's just that it's unsettling to see somebody jump all the way into ICs when solving the same problem on an easier level is already a useful product.
- hwillis 6y ago
  Ben Krasnow actually did this at home! https://youtu.be/Tx2B5hI4w1U https://youtu.be/Tx2B5hI4w1U

sebazzz 6y ago

Thomas Sanladerer had a video on this, essentially using the 3d printer as a plotter for PCBs. It creates an mask but the usual etching process is still there. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sL0LZFcNaow https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sL0LZFcNaow

hwillis 6y ago

Well, two layer anyway. People have printed overlapping traces into 3d printed volumes before, but it's a very flawed process. High currents are basically out of the question (resistance too high), analog voltages are very hard (inconsistent resistance), complex circuits struggle with connecting traces, and high speed circuits struggle with grounding/shielding. It's possible to achieve shockingly good results by electroplating (https://youtu.be/Tx2B5hI4w1U https://youtu.be/Tx2B5hI4w1U) but there are heavy caveats. There isn't really a process that approaches pcbs in a single area, much less all of them. Unfortunately that's more limiting than you'd expect- even very cheap ARM processors will probably be unstable without a ground plane and low resistance traces. I hear there's some interesting stuff coming in 2021 (can't tie rumors to my real name) and lots of people are working on this kind of thing, but the solutions are non-obvious. SLA is having a lot of trouble because it's hard to include a lot of conductive powder without degrading resin quality (and worse, it blocks the light), sintered stuff struggles with mixed powders, and resin stuff struggles with density and continuous lines/planes.