Dear Sir,
Judging by your e-mail address you are already familiar with the Direct
Imaging -technique where you take copper coated sheets of pcb-base material
(polyimide?), use your gerber-list to guide an ink jet like printer to
apply protective wax, etch the surplus copper, glue the sheets on top of
each other, drill small holes at via's and drive a rectangular nail through
each hole to make the via. This system doesn't produce blind vias and you
need to sacrifice quite a bit of room for vias. This is suitable for
instance for making makro-versions of circuits in the early phases of
product developement. You also need special software to design the board
with.
>From the available RP-machines none come to mind as having a direct
application in PCB-prototyping. Please educate me, anybody.
Some possibilities maybe:
Could the DTM sinterstation using plastic covered metal particles be driven
in a manner that by altering the strength of laser you could produce three
kind of joints between particles.
Maybe first just melting the plastic enough to glue the particles together
with the previous layer and neighbouring particles but keeping the cores
from contacting each other.
Second sweep would cover only the wired paths and melt the particles
further to join the metal cores but keep an insulating film of plastic on
top.
Third sweep would uncover solder pads and places for vias.
Maybe Cubitals' machine could be run with a wax filed with silver powder to
make it conductive enough. This would also be a good way to find out where
your circuit warms up first if it melts the wax.
If you could license the MIT patent (like Zcorp) with the idea of
alternating a non conductive powder and glue and metal powder and
conductive glue you might get a nice niche on the market.
Then for making it really "Rapid"-prototyping you would need a converter to
the 2,5 D presentation of today for PCB-design. Meaning adding thickness to
the layer components and processing a true 3D stl out of it. Maybe some
extra processing of layers is necessary as well. You need to define the
layer under the leads supporting it having only the vias a metal.
I'm certainly no expert in this field but couldn't resist the temptation to
respond. Please inform if also decent solutions come to your attention. We
might get some use out of them. We have PCB-prototypes made too.
Sincerely
Martti Huolila
__________________________________ ____ ___ __ _ _ _
All opinions are mine and should not be held against any organisation
helping to distribute this message.
martti.huolila@benefon.fi
Tel: +358 - 2 - 77 40 209 (direct)
Fax: +358 - 2 - 77 40 333
Benefon Oy
(Meriniitynkatu 11)
PL 84
FIN-24101 SALO
Benefon Oy, the company employing me, is the second largest cellular phone
manufacturer in Finland (of 2). Benefon was founded in Feb -88, and has
experienced a nice growth since. Turnover -97 was about FIM 330 million ($1
=> FIM5,4). We specialise in NMT-phones, have an ETACS-product and launched
our first GSM in -97.
__________________________________ ____ ___ __ _ _ _
ito@sdp.sel.sony.com on 30.04.98 07:08:16
To: rp-ml@bart.lpt.fi
cc: (bcc: Martti Huolila MHU/Benefon)
Subject: Rapid prototyping of Multi-layered PCB
Dear List,
I'm considering what rapid prototyping technology is most efficient for
multi-layered PCB rapid prototying.
If someone knows good examples or researches, I would like to ask
any informatins of you.
I would greatly appreciate any informations, comments and suggestions.
Thank you
Best regards,
Seiji Ito
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E-mail : ito@sdp.sel.sony.com
Engineering Planning
Management Information Systems
Sony Electronics Inc.
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San Diego, California 92127-1804, USA
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