Voltera’s V-One direct printing PCB printer reached their $70K Kickstarter funding goal in just 35 minutes! Conductive ink is used for traces and pads. An insulating pass places a non-conductive patch where the two layers cross, allowing the second layer to be printed on top of the first layer. Also can dispense solder paste to allow parts placement then reflow.
Can do 8 mil trace width, 0.8mm pin pitch (0.5mm /solder paste), 0603 passive (0402 w/solder paste). Pretty impressive specs, no wonder it funded so quickly.
Does not have hole drilling capability, so mainly for surface mount. However, blank template boards are provided that are predrilled for specific applications such as Arduino shield. Developers are open to other templates such as Pi, BeagleBone, etc. With current KS pledges totaling $193K+, they should have funds to develop additional templates.
Kickstarter price is $1500 for Batch 2, shipping in January 2016.
That’s pretty darn sweet. Given how Kickstarter projects usually go though, I’d wait until they are in full production to spend the money on one, even if it costs more.
I was looking for a tongue-in-cheek emoticon for my ‘shouldn’t we order on now’ comment, but couldn’t find it. Got the link fixed - dang copy/paste errors
I’m trying to wrap my head around the “two layers” on one side aspect of it. If they’re calling it two layers, why not call it 3? Being on the same side makes it not as flexible as two actual sides. Not even sure how I’d draw that up in KiCad/Eagle etc. A lot of short “0 ohm resistors” I guess
UPDATE: From their FAQ:
We accomplish printing two layer circuits by sandwiching an insulating ink between layers of conductive inks. Our software automatically converts vias you have in the design into bridges so that one trace can jump over another.
Still seems like you could have issues with colinear traces etc.
