
RepRap printed circuits - ph0rque
http://blog.ponoko.com/2012/05/25/reprap-printed-circuits/
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eschaton
If self-replication really is the holy grail it seems like it'd be easier to
have the system set up as a (self-)assembly line than a jack-of-all-trades:
Print photoresist, etch, drill, pick & place, wave-solder, cut, etc. And doing
anything "assembly" will also require intervention without also doing
significant robotics work.

It might be straightforward to optimize the number of needed stations to
"print" a reasonably-sized PCB that's fully populated and ready to use,
though. Particularly if some stations could be combined due to similar
hardware and precision needs: drilling vias and mounting holes could be done
with almost the same hardware as pick & place. But full self-assembly will be
orders of magnitude more difficult because of the need to move through several
stations, potentially with manipulation in between. There you're getting into
essentially small-scale factory design.

It'll be awesome when it happens though: An assembler that can autonomously
create, "from scratch" (only basic components), another fully-functional
assembler. That can create, "from scratch," yet another fully-functional
assembler.

Just, uh, don't go combining all that with mobile resource foraging and
extraction and an imperative to keep making copies.

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mahyarm
I think a more likely scenario is cities having little 'auto-factory'
locations that have an automated machine shop create things for the
neighborhood. They'll get shipments of raw materials, electronics and energy
pipelines. These shops can assemble the robots for new shops and so on.

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mukaiji
Or if you've got $50K to spare, checkout the Dimatix material deposition
printers. I spent 2 years on one in a printed electronic lab at Stanford.
You'll need access to a chem lab to get research-grade printable & conductive
polymers :)

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NonEUCitizen
How conductive are conductive polymers?

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unwind
From Wikipedia (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conductive_polymer#History>),
reference markers removed:

 _In 1963 Australians Bolto, DE Weiss, and coworkers reported iodine-doped
oxidized polypyrrole blacks with resistivities as low as 1 ohm·cm. This
Australian group eventually claimed to reach resistivities as low as 0.03
ohm·cm with other conductive organic polymers. This resistivity is roughly
equivalent to present-day efforts._

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genericdave
Cool, but I'd hesitate to start calling it a "printed circuit" just yet. The
print is acting as more of an automatic sottering iron.

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ajross
It's a printed circuit board. No one (sane) is talking about DIY fabbing of
semiconductors.

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kanzure
> No one (sane) is talking about DIY fabbing of semiconductors.

Sure we are.. <http://code.google.com/p/homecmos> and irc.freenode.net
##hplusroadmap says hi.

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Allaun
Early days, But promising ones.

