I am currently undertaking my fourth year in Bsc Industrial design Eng. at
De Montfort University in Leicester (UK). During my placement in industry
over the last year, working with Sclumberger RMS as a PCB designer and
electronic hardware tester, I became interested in ways of rapid
prototyping printed circuit Boards.
My initial idea was to generate plot files from Gerber data in order to
plot a conductive ink or adhesive onto a substrate. The idea bieng to
create a PC peripheral type device. So that a board could be generated
within a few hours from the time it was designed (rather than the 24 hour
turnaround time I witnessed of sending away a design to be processed then
sent back via courier).
I've since found out their are plans to develop RP machines which could
layer different materials, ideally lending itself to this process where
several layers of substrate and tracking could be build up.
I'm also interested in the idea of creating low tech PCB's rapidly in 3
dimensions on curved surfaces, to reduce the size of electronic products.
Using small surface mount devices or even printed resistors and capacitors.
If anyone has an interest in this type of development or can aid me in my
project I would be very grateful of any help you can provide.
Huw Williams
BSc. Industrial Design (Eng.)
78, grasmere St.
Leicester
LE2 7DA
+44 0116 2996497
H_Williams@Postmaster.co.uk
For more information about the rp-ml, see http://ltk.hut.fi/rp-ml/
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