Printed Circuit Boards using Inkjet Printers
Electronics engineers like me take pleasure in news that revolutionises the electronics industry with a simple day to day gadget like an ink jet printer. This cutting edge process has been simplified many times by Seyed Bidoki, a PhD student from Leeds University, UK has modified a typical HP inkjet printer to enable the printer to print printed circuit boards (PCB).
Seyed replaced the inks in an HP inkjet printer with silver nitrate in one chamber and ascorbic acid (Vitamin C) in the other. The circuits are printed with the silver nitrate and ascorbic acid is laid over it. This printed circuit is washed with water to wash away everything except silver which acts as a layer of conductivity just like copper on a PCB.
This process of creating a PCB using a device like an inkjet printer is additive in nature and contradictory to the original process which is subtractive as it uses a process of etching. Although this technology doesn’t have the low resistance that the present day PCBs possess, it is still a step towards the simplification of manufacturing the boards used in just about all modern electronic devices. Alexander Graham Bell didn’t come up with cell phones; he just sparked the idea of telephony which has progressed far beyond anybody’s imagination.
About the author:
Abhinav has been blogging about printing and related technologies on CreativeCloud for several years. He is also a project manager for a large technology company.
Share your thoughts, leave a comment!
(get your own gravatar)