This is where 3D Printers were 10 years ago. So I see this being really common and cheap by 2030 - maybe sooner. Hope this idea survives the embryonic stages. Great review!
Actually, sooner. You can make a 3d printer do exactly this. There are already injector extruders available, and so on... this thing isn't worth $400, let alone $4000.... Ugly finish, etc... I can get just as ugly a finish with protoboards, and for connecting surface mount components, I just run traces around and don't cross... Or, simply run thin wires and a bit of adhesive to get the same result for prototyping.
@@loleq2137 it's a joke. OP said that maybe those printers become cheap and common by 2030... loleq21 said that maybe there will be no humans on Earth by then...
0:40 LOL! pretty cool idea, but with PCB's so cheap to have printed it makes sense to wait the week for delivery. I'm sure the price will come down within a few years though. Remember when a 3D printer cost thousands, now it's like £200 next day delivery.
It really depends on what it's slowing down. If you've got engineers spinning their wheels waiting on a prototype PCB for a week, then it'd be worth the money. That's assuming that the company can't use traditional acid bath techniques to make prototype boards, though.
@@jeffspaulding9834 If you have engineers spinning their wheels you can also get your pcb made and delivered in a day (is quite costly aswell though)... the issue is that this can only print two layers, so for many designs it's not suitable
@@johnuferbach9166 That's a good point. I don't work in a field that does a lot of PCB prototyping (we'll solder something on a PCB sometimes, but mostly it comes to us already assembled) so I don't really know, but I'd be interested to see how often two-sided prototypes boards are used in the industry. I know a lot of the stuff I work with is two sided, but that's because it's meant for field repairs (it's mostly through-hole for the same reason).
@@jeffspaulding9834 that's why we bought one where I work. It's completely useless, and barely functions as advertised. We just order boards on a 24h turnaround from a domestic supplier instead.
Would be fun for starting a mini business. You can still do 3d printing for profit at home but naturally you need to network a lot and bring some skills into the deal ie 3d modelling, painting and other finishing
The price is horrendous, and even putting that aside the process is still fiddly and slow. Still, if you have the money, don't mind the hassle and want to regularly make PCBs quicker than waiting on mail order boards then I guess it's viable?
True, especially considering the fact that this thing is theoretically nothing more than a 3d printer with a different substance to print with and a drill tool.
Thanks for the honest review. Given I can make a PCB in roughly 2-3 hours at home and not have to wait for or buy consumables, I don't see this as a good product, even in an educational environment. Hell, when I helped my instructor in high school make the boards for the class we used the photoresist method which was quite quick anyhow, plus no limit on PCB dimensions.
@@ameliabuns4058 Currently with pcb software, a laser printer and dextrin coated paper. There's a ton of info if you search the web. JLC would produce better results though.
Well i wait 1 month with cheap option, i can wait less but i have to pay more, but that make it quite expensive (Before someone gonna comment that this isn't that expensive , I live in Poland with make prices-earnings ratio quite bad for me, fact that i'm 18 year old didn't help either). Of course income just like chipping time and price depend on country. But my point is, this is trade of, cheap but not fast, or fast but not cheap. But i quess you can live in place where this no option is neither cheap neither fast.
Check out Marco reps. It's a good channel. It also has videos on pcb manufacture using a 3d printer and a mounted laser which would be a much more affordable option but that's secondary.
It is worth it for a company. Imagine you order a prototype PCB and realize there it needs a change so now your entire engineering staff is getting paid while doing nothing for a week. Even rush jobs take 24 hours-2 days and cost several thousands. A company will recover the investment within the first product development cycle if not within the first week.
This is so exciting and impressive. The price actually isn’t that bad given that this is such a new company/product. If this is one of their first products....that’s absolutely amazing. I personally will hold off on getting one of these until they can make something precise enough to make the kind of PCBs that I usually make (ie. 0402’s components, QFN/BGA, fine pitch stuff basically). They’d need some way of applying a solder mask for sure.
Yeah and it is super fing manual. My designs are simple enough to fit on two layers. I would need to add every via manually I would kill myself. A week is super fing good for a 4 layer assembled pcb in my opinion
This is for prototypes, not to replace pcb makers, as an engineer I can say, I have been waiting for this, I am at a point where I might have been able to make it myself, but I might just buy one to be able to do designs and repairs faster
I have had mine for 6 months or so. I am happy with it. getting good results (i.e ones that dont short) takes some trial and error. Although it can be used to print whole PCBs, that is what JLC is for, I use it for printing bits of a PCB - checking footprints - debugging stuff. The team are super nice - but 4k is a serious investment as well.
I make virtually one-off circuits all the time. So the typical transfer method works for me and rarely do I make any mistakes transferring any circuit to the board now... And I have a great floor model drill press that accepts the finest wire drill bits I own up to and including #80. So I will continue on with how I do them. Great video anyway....
We got one of these at my previous company. We didn't really use the printable traces functionality at all and really just wanted it to do solder paste application & reflow using the hot plate. The needles would constantly break even after tons of calibration, the paste application was not very great and required tons of calibration, and the consumables were crazy. The needles were basically a single use and would not be usable the next day due to being clogged with dry solder paste. The only thing we really got good use out of was the hot plate. Its a neat concept, and it seems they are still around and selling product, but its hard to compare with how cheap a jlcpcb pcb + stencil is (and now they will pretty much do most of the smt soldering for you too)
@@leadergames0661 I guess, because in 1999 there were no easy and cheap ways of getting custom PCBs. Nowadays, also it takes a week, JLCPCB and such are just too affordable for everyone that it would make sense to buy this printer!
@@KertaDrake You would need a pretty impressive hottend for that. Most cheap ones are made of copper, aluminium or something similar with these you would risk that it amalgamates with the hot tin. So you would need a hottend and nozzle that can reach up to 300 degrees C and be made of something like stainless steel. But it probably is possible yea
DIY would be stupidly easy. Nothing about this is sophisticated at all, just the changeable tool platform is a bit unique in that it uses pin to pad as a connection method, and that the bed works as a workpiece clamp and the curing heater. The only other non-standard thing is the screw-based plunger extruder for the ink vial, but this isn't anything difficult to implement. The drill itself is so unsophisticated that it uses a literal RC hobby motor to run it. Take any typical 3D printer, add a clamping system to hold a PCB blank to the bed, and have a a changeable tool system. The plunger extruder would work off the filament extruder's functionality but at a different feed rate depending on the gearing between motor and plunger. The drill could probably run off the extruder's functionality as well, but implement it as a switched function where a constant feed rate has the drill as 'on,' and stopping the feed rate switches it to 'off,' with a simple amp to run the DC motor. You could probably even upgrade the tool changer from a manual system to an automatic system. The only sophisticated part that would need work is the probe function, as most closed-source printers won't integrate it nicely unless a probing system is already provided, resulting in the probe being entirely separate and integrating at the design software level, or there's a chance more open-software products would allow it, with open-source platforms being the most open to this modification. But with that said, is probing actually necessary? Most 3D printers are going to be level for proper printing anyways, and the clamping system should be sophisticated enough to keep relative flatness of parts, even with the PCB floating in relation to the bed; even hobby milled standoff clamps should be toleranced well enough as long as the hobby machinist knows what they're doing. As for positioning purposes, I would think a laser pointer would be a valid replacement, and would be an entirely passive tool. This only leaves curing. I'd recommend and oven as no typical 3D printer is going to have a bed that safely achieves the 210°C requirement. Heated beds for ABS only really achieve >100°C due to going above the glass transition temperature of 100°C isn't really recommended. A heated bed that'll go to 210°C is a modification that is possible, but at that point it's probably safer to use an oven due to burn hazards on an open surface. The only big issue is the consumable that is the ink. I'm not sure how many suppliers there are for this stuff. Though I do wonder how similar it is to solder paste that board manufacturers use for SMD soldering; seems like it'd be similar stuff, high silver lead free paste, just the 'ink vials' use a much finer syringe tip. There may also be some kind of etching agent, or something in the reaction while baking, that adheres the paste to the fiberglass of the PCB; though I'm not sure how soldering paste interacts with a raw PCB without solder mask, as SMD soldering always has a solder mask on the etched PCB, there may not be a need for any method of adhering the paste to the board. The paste is the big unknown, and the cost of the Voltera pastes makes an alternative solution worth looking into. On the topic of conductive consumables, we've also seen actual conductive ink, as in pen ink, and we've seen various forms of filament that're metallic and conductive once you bake off the plastic. I don't think finding a product between the two would be all that difficult, especially as solder pastes already exist in various recipes. Unfortunately, Voltera doesn't list the metallic recipes for their inks, though they do for their various solder pastes. All of Voltera's products also require refrigeration for an 8 month shelf life, which makes this entire system even more expensive given that each vial is only 2ml. Only thing left is the rivet tool, probably the least sophisticated tool here, as hollow rivets have been a thing for a long time and are mostly understood in how they work. At the end of the day, the conversion is simple, with a simple manual tool changer, and simple code hacks to make it all work, with the biggest issue being the cost of OEM solder pastes and the need to find an affordable alternative. All of this is also true for converting a CNC mill, though you'd need to make more drastic changes to how the tool functions to get that platform to function correctly, as exchanging extruder type A for extruder type B is fairly simple and could easily be a 1:1 exchange in coding, but adapting a mill would be like adapting the mill to a 3D printer first before adapting it to a PCB printer. All of this is easily achievable, it's just the damned ink that makes the DIY project expensive. But does anyone really need a PCB printer? PCB printing services are extremely affordable, with some having decent turn around times, not to mention those services can do everything a PCB printer can plus more, considering those services can also do multi-layer boards. Even DIYing a double sided board isn't that difficult, though chemicals involved may produce safety hazards, but a simple masking and etching setup is extremely cheap in comparison to a machine with a high cost consumable ink. While a cool project, I just don't see the point of it. Need a prototype board? This is what we have perfboard for, or even better, just use a breadboard until an order from a PCB service arrives. There is literally no logical explanation for PCB ink printers to exist, other than being an expensive toy for people with more money than brains. I can't find a single use case where this machine has any advantage over what we already have and already use; especially when the consumable has a shelf life that requires you to actually produce a decent volume of boards within that time frame.
@@xaytana Right you can just get a simple CNC mill from eBay for $100-200 and add parts on to do what this thing does for less than 1/10th of the cost. Conductive ink is nothing new they aren't the first and it is cheap not only is it cheap you can make it yourself at home.
We have one in our lab. It's nothing like the PCBs you get from JLCPCB and the ink is pricy. It can print on flexible substrates and that is really handy. Prototyping flexible electronics can be costly, and while Voltera can't do fine pitch, is a great prototype tool.
My uni bought one of these. They are very usefull for fast (in comparison instant) prototyping. However you do have to treat ground planes differently. The software is amazing and student proof. Not sure if they fixed it in the mean time, but you can't skip the heating fase on double sided prints. We have an external oven that can heat way faster would save about an hour. If you do get one, get extra spare nozzles.
There is one additional minor issue (not sure if he mentioned it), but the input is 200V AC min, you aren't running it on 120V (and I have my doubts about 60 Hz). It takes about 2.5A at 240V so that's a significant transformer if you go that route. I'm rather surprised they didn't make it 110/220 compatible. Most things today are and don't even need a switch, they just have a DC supply built-in that takes anything from 85-265V.
I've always respected Elektor since starting in electronics as a hobby many years ago. Was a subscriber for a couple of years but found I didn't have enough spare time to justify it. Anyway, liked the video and that printer looks great! Thanks :-))
Not ready for prime time but thanks Marco and there is nothing "silly" about your videos... Definitely my favourites. A hint for anyone who is irritated by the ad-interruptions; Fast forward to the end of the video and then go back to the beginning. The ad's are wiped out (works for me every time) 😎
i would love to see this technology get cheaper so I can finally not have to use giant breadboards as because the printer looks similar to a modified 3d printer i think it will take just a few years ( 2025 - 2033 )to get reasonably cheaper
The printer would become cheap and easy to get, if the concept was succesfull. But the main problem lies in the conductive inks. These have been around for decades and didn't get cheaper by any means, ever, mostly for the expensive resources needed.
Pretty cool, but yeah, the price does seem rather prohibitive, especially considering that the resulting traces seem pretty resistive. It does look nice though, and the cnc hole drill definitely seem like a timesaver! In my department at Uni we mostly go by etching; Print the design on parchment paper, align it on a PCB (with photoresist coating), put it in the UV box ( on a 90 second timer), dunk it in the developer tank for 20 seconds or so, rinse, put it in the etching machine, wait 5-10 min, and then clean off the remaining photoresist. All that remains is to drill holes. The etching machine is basically an acrylic aquarium, with an aquarium heater, PCB holders and rods that suck up the etchant from the bottom, and spray it in the chamber by centripetal force, all plastic and somewhat inexpensive parts. Total time from printing the paper to finished PCB is around 10-15 minutes (plus hole drilling time) if the etchant is warm (and people don't forget to top up the sodium persulfate...). Doing two sided prints only adds that you have to print a second circuit layout and align the two, rest of the process remain the same.
Great Scott! Cool video! PCBs are more than just connections - for some time now. But, for clarity, what you said is ok! Elektor was popular even in Brazil!
I like the company's that give you a visual guide.. I have never been a book learner.. I can do it but it has always been easier for me doing hands on learning.. once I have learned the basics then the book is of value to me.. Dang.. but that is how it goes in new markets the first prototypes are never exactly right but they usually get better from there.. Great show! carry on!
Thing is way over engineered. You see how thick the metal is supporting the head? I mentioned it in another comment, but there's a reason a lot of 3D printers prices started dropping when they realized they could get 99% good results with a material as ubiquitous as extruded aluminum. Strong Juicero vibes from this machine.
It's a very clever piece of equipment. I do think that it needs a bit of retraction adjustment on the nozzle though, judging by the blobs of solder paste at the ends of the tracks!
I really like that this sort of thing is in development and I'm sure that someday it'll be affordable and as effective as etched or routed copper. That said, this is not that someday, and other simpler methods still win out even for those of us that are strictly DIY all the way. I use a method I found on the Internet, which is to print the art onto typical magazine or photo paper, but instead of ironing, wet the art with a mix of isopropyl and acetone, and then press it hard to the very thoroughly cleaned copper. It works just like ironing but doesn't need heat at all. Let it sit for a bit to gas out, then just rinse and peel like always, and etch the result in HCl + H2O2. Very easy, very effective.
Far out I recall seeing the open day at our NZ DSIR Physics and Engineering lab in Lower Butt NZ back in the 1970s. A Canadian scientist was researching how to do this....Laurie New Zealand
Well, in Germany it may takes a week for you to get a custom designed PCB. But here in China, especially Shenzhen, it takes as fast as within 24 hours and the price is extremely cheap. Like $5 for 10 pieces if you want it urgently. Courier service is also fast, it takes 1 day within the same province and 2-3 days throughout the country. So it just takes less time for us buying PCB from factories than building them by ourselves, plus it's way cheaper. Actually nice video actually, I guess Elektor might regrated sending it to you now :)
Great Video. There are also 3D Printing technologies that directly print traces and parts alongside a plastic like PLA. I think that thats very interesting for future design processes. Embedding Parts directly into the chassis seems very clean compared to traditional PCBs.
Having to buy proprietary consumables is an instant red flag. Especially for that price. It really wouldn't be that hard to make something similar for a considerably lower price. ODrives could give the accuracy and precision, or use a powerful laser with a galvo system to engrave a design onto a PCB that has been covered with something to resist etchant.
As mentioned earlier in the comments it is still new tech and the price will fall considerably. This looks very similar to a 3d printer, so we could see Integration in a multi-nozzle printer. Very simple and exciting stuff. Power to the people!
You can of course reflow the traces with some solder mask to increase conductivity. and use some solder mask pens to cover traces if needed. Anyway this looks like a nice product for universities or maybe prototyping as you said. If I was building my own PCT I would mess something up at least multiple times, so I would have to wait for my PCB for a month. But I am not a PCB designer and my knowledge base is is not that good for building complex projects, but if needed I can use dead bug methods.
I always use single or double sided fiber glass cooper clad but instead of hot iron for toner transfer (can be used for component mask and solder mask) i use 8:3 alcohol-acetone mixture then after etching with ferric chloride and drilling the holes I put small drops of hot glue to cover the soldering areas and proceed to paint the rest of the surface with green heat resistant spray paint, using self made pine- citric acid soldering paste or flux highly recommended for people that are exposed to solder fumes often because synthetic soldering paste or flux are not healthy. Order pcbs is good but when you want to feel proud of your handy work DIY is the best option
Looks like a seriously well designed machine but way out of the ability to be “invested in” by even a large company! I personally have 100% fantastic results using the toner method & a modified thermal laminator. Double side boards also but I have to solder in a “via wire” . It takes under 30mins to make a small prototype board ready for soldering from the minute I printout the laser printer mask. I use 1205 SMD but smaller is possible with microscope and this reduces the amount of drilling for vias, mounting holes or through hole parts. Personally it’s a winner considering I do it all at home & verifies a layout that I may later have made properly by mailorder PCB production company.
I remember watch them demo this a few years ago when it was first in development. They said they had a target price of under $500. I'm guessing they missed their target. Besides the price of the unit the price of the inks will be a major downside. With the price of silver spiking this will only drive the ink prices higher. But this also has the side benefit of making the discarded print actually valuable for silver recovery. Overall it is an interesting concept but I think I will just wait for my own replicator.
I was curious about this product but now I know it is not for me. If I have time I'll order on jlc. If I need it here and now I'll just use Laser-Ironing to make my own. For those who don't know this tec: Print your PCB layout mirrored on a gloss photopaper on laser printer, then put it on a copper coated pcb board, then use an iron to press it to the pcb. It will transfer the ink onto pcb. Then wash off paper and you will have traces on copper. To remove exessive copper you simply put this pcb into mix of Hydrogenpyroxide and Lemon acid for half hour. Then wash it, drill it and you are golden. 2 hours of work will give you much better quality of the traces than voltera and you you will save a lot of money:)
JLCPCB can get you a professional PCB all over the world for a low price in one week. One week is an acceptable wait, I work on the PCB design during the weekend, I send for production on Saturday or Sunday, the PCB normally arrives to work on them by the next weekend.
Danke für das Review. Am Liebsten sehe ich Dich einfach auf Protoboards löten, das sieht immer so ästhetisch aus und ich weiss nicht wie man das schafft 👍 Bleib gesund und liebe Grüsse aus 🇨🇭
One of the biggest issues I have is the very limited via treatment. This only supports two hole sizes, and does not support irregularly shaped holes. Lots of my designs require irregularly shaped or large plated-through holes.
I think it has a long way to go, however this seems like you might be able to combine it with regular 3d printing, which means you could do 3d circuits inside parts. Quite exciting!
Hey could you maybe make a video about how to get all the parts for starters? I especially mean ICs, Mosfets, Capacitors ect. You often have huge part lists under your video but it's somehow awkward to buy all of them single or a bunch of lets say 5 ICs of that type, 10 Mosfets of that type ect. Especially for new ones this can be quite tedious because we all don't know what to use where. I bought a few boxes of sortiments for ICs but I am never sure if it contains the right ones I'd need for a project... So what sortiments of components would be the best for a broad range of beginner projects? Would be cool, thanks!
Not my cup of tea, I agree with your final comments 100%. I would like a simpler one which only drills the holes though. Before ordering the final version to our favorite PCB manufacturer, I do etch my own prototypes, and the worst part of it is the drilling of those holes by hand.
I think you should DIY one of these. I think that if you build the 3d printer, and turn up the head temp and narrow the filliment then you could print directly the circuit. How you get it to stick and to what is something beyond me currently. Using a cold bed would form the tracers, and obviously the print head can be removed and swapped for a drill head.
@@lepidoptera9337 time and place a cause? I think now more people make things, if it's easy enough. And if there is a app. Many years ago, things were very much all work no play and small hobby groups. And no Facebook and RU-vid launchers.
I wonder if it would be easier to just use a conductive PLA filament on a 3D printer to accomplish something similar. You might have to manually drill holes, but considering you can get 3D printers pretty cheap and filament pretty cheap, you could test this for under $200 total ($150 for a cheap 3D printer and another $50 for the filament).
It's fabulous that this exists, but honestly, given all the hassle, third party components to buy & buy ( the special inks etc . . . ) I'd rather wait a bit to get it from somewhere else. But awesome video, as always !!
Excellent video! What is the "sacrificial layer"? (I don't yet own a 3D printer and have never done a 3D printer project before, so I have a lot of vocabulary to learn yet. Is there a good 3D printing vocabulary sheet somewhere online I could refer to?)
That seems like a lot of work. Even if you were going to print your own proprietary PCBs for a business that you run it would take one person full time to accomplish this. It would be more cost effective to have them printed by one of the PCB printing companies.
A good idea for a project is to modify a 3d printer to print on pcb's using a inkjet cartridge.I've seen some pinouts and projects on the internet based on hp 45 and c6602.You will still need to etch the pcb but for me the most annoying part is transfering the design on the board
hello an excellent video I have a concern, can the machine make a pcb only using drill bits on a copper pcb? Could you do the test, I really liked the machine and I would like to know the result of the test to make prototypes Thank you Greetings from Colombia
Is it possible to use proper soldering technique with this? I.e. heat up the “copper” rather than touch the solder wire? Can it also be reflowed in a standard reflow oven?
at this point I think laser etching pcbs may be the way to go. It can be fast and with lasers I know you can get things down pretty fine. Again though just the cost but if you have a 3d printer you can buy a mod kit for things like that or just buy and expensive laser etching that only does that one job.
Give it 10/15 Years, I imagine these will be semi common thing, definitely common in school labs which currently also have 3D Printers.. it’s just getting people to buy now, so we can buy these for cheap in the next few decades.
Se podría implementar en hacer membranas electrónicas, ya que algunas son muy difíciles de conseguir por la marca o por ser antiguas, Ustedes qué piensas? Diseñar membranas patito con esta cosa en cuestión de horas?
