yogi wrote:
Guspaz wrote:
There are already home PCB printers either already available, or shortly to enter the market. The Voltera looks the most interesting, I think, since it can print pseudo-2-layer boards. To do that, it lays down the conductive ink, then uses non-conductive ink to build a bridge over the bottom trace, so that it can run another trace over it (like an overpass).
Oh, did not know about these. Sounds interesting for
FAST prototypes
I'm guessing that one downside would be cost, at least for now.
Yogi
Depending on the durability, it probably makes sense for small runs too, if the boards aren't too complex. It's one thing to stuff a prototype board yourself (and the Voltera is supposed to be able to print the solder paste right onto the board without the need for a solder stencil and also serve as a reflow oven) but I imagine that would get old real fast if you had to stuff complex boards for anything more than just prototypes. Now if only somebody could make a cheap home pick-and-place machine
There is a decent up-front cost, but I'd imagine that the long term cost is much cheaper than paying somebody else to do prototypes for you, considering what I've seen of pricing from people like OSHPark.
EDIT: Actually Voltera says you can't reflow solder boards they print, so the solder paste printing stuff is meant for traditional boards, not things printed by their own machine.