Adventures with solderless 3D printed circuits + conductive filament 

XD

It is the nature of trying to make plastic flow electricity. It's a miracle manufacturers can make it work this well at all.

Since this filament is conductive, you may be able to electroplate bright copper on to it.....there are some cheap kits with anode and solution available on eBay.

Do you know what is resistive filament? this one :) 3DXSTAT™ ESD-Safe PETG 3D FILAMENT ( Target surface resistance: 10^7 to 10^9 Ohm.)

It's the same thing, just a semantic change. Things that conduct have resistance. Things that have some resistance do conduct. They are the reciprocal of one another.

theoretically could it be used to make a touch lamp? I have an idea but I don't have any of this kind of thing, so I can't test it out

I would love that too, that would be so cool.

This is an amazing idea, kinda like the Scrapyard Wars of 3d printing. Count me in as a viewer.

This is the content we need!

...and they have to build it by knitting it together with wool.

Interesting idea, but what is the definition of best? Is largest print volume best? Is fastest printing best? Is highest temperature printing best? Is ease of use best? Is best mechanical design best?

Conductance is the reciprocal to resistance: 1/C = R 1/R = C i don't know if there will be much difference in the sense of using different wording. But again, I don't know anything about sales.

Do you ship in in Europe?

Great idea

That happened to me 😂😂

A toolchanger could have a soldering head, dispensing solder paste and heating it up. Or even use a laser for that purpose. Such things probably already exist somewhere.... Easier would be a plotter with conductive ink, which is slightly better than the conductive filament.

I shorted the leads of the resistor for the first test, made little difference. Too much resistance in the other components. Tool changers are exciting, let's see where this technology is in five years.

Yes, I also have tried ferromagnetic filament, in hopes it would be useful for making motors, inductors, transformers, speaker magnets etc. Nope, the magnetic conductivity (permittivity) is very poor, not useful at all. This filament might still be useful for something like embedding a capacitive sensor buttons. Though the conductivity is so poor i'm afraid it won't be useful even for that.

Don't forget, that we also need an extruder for redstone.

you could pour the conductive epoxy into printed groves.

Nice idea, I will investigate.

Thank you, I will check it out.

See my post above

@Stereo Rainbow yes I think with an all metal hotend it should work

I was able to print lines and even some curves but sadly no areas, because the solder flew together and it became a mess. But when You think about it it should be possible to print some PCBs or even some Basic eldctric devices like a Flashlight. With a Dual Extruder you could start by printing the framd, then print the eldctric wirimg with solder and the adding a LED and a battery. This would be so cool

Great idea, perhaps I'll follow up in future.

I've been reading comments trying to find this suggestion. I think conductive filament could make some interesting sensors. You could have a bunch of separate patches on a robot and monitor these patches to see where the robot contacts other objects.

Ha ha When he said that I repeated it back to myself 😁

Me too :)

a valid idea, but it wouldn't work. The lowest melting point solder I know of is chip-quick. It uses a compound of indium and silver, or tin. melts around 118-C (depending on the composition the range is 244-315 degrees F)and stays liquid for a decent amount of time. Normal use is for soldering components that are susceptible to heat, or use in bonding to ceramics and glass. I use it for desoldering as a small amount can be used over a long period, and I can increase it by feeding it normal solder during the removal process. Good for salvaging IC's or for use on old film trace boards that damage easy. There are also a variety of solder paste that use the indium/bismuth base and while the melting point is around 118-C the normal or optimum reflows are around 170. So a nylon base print may work if you use it like an inlay, but you are going to run into so many issues trying to get anything you described to work. Also keep in mind then when solder is melted it is a viscous liquid that tends to pull into itself. So having paths only a few mm's thick are not going to work, you would need at minimum 5 to 10 mm, because you are going to have to shave off at least 1-2 since the base layer is going to create air pockets/pits and part of that is going to be from any flux in the paste you can't burn off. so the last idea with the casting would be your best attempt, but again all that ambient heat is going to linger unless you quench it, so there is a chance of deforming, even if you pack it sand like a traditional casting in which case building the mold out of way would probably be better.