

Voxel8 Demonstrates Its Electronics-Capable 3D Printer at CES 2015 [video] - doctoboggan
http://makezine.com/2015/01/08/voxel8-demonstrates-its-electronics-capable-3d-printer-at-ces-2015/

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klint
Voxel8 is a spin-off from Harvard's Lewis Lab. More info on their work:

[http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/526521/microsc...](http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/526521/microscale-3-d-printing/)

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doctoboggan
This is correct. We've licensed much of the IP from the lab and plan on
commercializing it through Voxel8.

We've designed the printer heads to be modular, and after the printer is
released we plan on releasing new extruder heads designed to work with new
materials. Some of the more interesting materials from the lab are the carbon
fiber reinforced epoxy and the flexible electronics materials.

Let me know if anyone has any questions!

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lchengify
Any plan to offer this as a service? Wouldn't have a use for the printer
itself, but the electronics-in-cavity printing technique alone could be useful
for prototyping devices that would otherwise require a lot of manual assembly.

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doctoboggan
No plans now, we want to focus on building and selling the machine itself.
Maybe one of the current 3D printing services will buy one and offer prints
however.

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blemasle
I'd rather go for the voltera v-one which is capable of printing on FR4 board
: [http://techcrunch.com/2015/01/06/the-voltera-v-one-makes-
cir...](http://techcrunch.com/2015/01/06/the-voltera-v-one-makes-circuit-
boards-in-minutes/)

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kubindurion
Check out Cirqoid, I got two of those, they are very reliable, with paste
dispensing and pick&place functions. It's generally a cnc, here is a link to
an image of a board I created using it
[http://40.media.tumblr.com/b13263cd969cb266e1856c5bf7c27eda/...](http://40.media.tumblr.com/b13263cd969cb266e1856c5bf7c27eda/tumblr_n3bcc1f11I1txp3eyo1_500.jpg)

And here is a site of Cirqoid [http://cirqoid.com](http://cirqoid.com)

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new299
wow, that machine is amazingly cheap. The CNCs I've worked with were about
30000USD. How are the results? Does the lack of an auto-tool changer get
annoying?

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jdiez17
This is pretty cool, and I'm glad circuit manufacturing technology is making
its way to the home. It still has a long way to go - a pick-and-place
attachment would be very neat - but it's a promising step in the right
direction. However at $9000 it's very much out of reach for average consumers.

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hippich
Also, since solder can't handle large loads (it would simply melt at some
point,) PCB milling looks like another approach and also somewhat worked on in
RepRap community -
[http://reprap.org/wiki/PCB_Milling](http://reprap.org/wiki/PCB_Milling)

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hippich
There was also related work going on in RepRap community -
[http://blog.reprap.org/2009/04/first-reprapped-
circuit.html](http://blog.reprap.org/2009/04/first-reprapped-circuit.html)

Not sure if it progressed anywhere since 2009 tho.

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jeffwass
Are we at the point yet where a 3D printer can replicate itself? Or at least
print another functional 3D printer?

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Matumio
We are either already there and improving (reprap, add vitamins and lots of
human labour) or still far away (no printing of motors, microchips and hotend
on a single machine).

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rplnt
I'd go with still far away.

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31reasons
At $9000 its out of my range.

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jacquesm
It's a tool, not a toy. Most tools get bought by parties that have economic
reasons to buy them, they typically expect to make back the cost of the tool
many times over.

If you can't afford it find someone who could and then rent some time on one.

The same goes for just about any other high cap-ex tool (lasercutters, milling
machines, lathes and so on).

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new299
A typical PCB milling machine would cost 30000USD at the lower end. But
looking at boards produced by this machine, it doesn't come close to the
quality of a milled board.

I think you could probably develop a milling machine with a similar price
point, and some people I believe have used cheap Proxxon (MF70) mills to cut
PCBs (the MF70 costs about 400USD). So I'm not sure what the advantage of
extruding here is.

I guess it would be interesting if they can do multilayer boards, but from the
results shown that doesn't look like a possibility.

