Circuit scribe - The pen you allways wanted

[PeterL]

My prediction for 2014 is that DaveCAD(tm) will gain a lot of market share  :

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/electroninks/circuit-scribe-draw-circuits-instantly?ref=category

[minibutmany]

Worlds first?
I think I have seen something like this at Radioshack...

[RRobot]

Yeah you probably saw something like this:

http://www.mgchemicals.com/products/prototyping-and-circuit-repair/pens/silver-conductive-8420-p/

They outline in the kick starter write up why they are better than the 'unnamed competition'. No smearing, quick dry etc...

[c4757p]

They don't claim to be the first, they claim to be the first that's "ink-like" enough to make sharp lines on  a page. They might be right there, those conductive pens are crap.

[peter.mitchell]

I usually use window demister repair pens, they work much better than the silver ink pens. Much cheaper too, not as low resistance but ey, cant have everything.

[Psi]

I've never seen a conductive ink pen that low enough resistance to be useful.

[EEVblog]

I've been offered one of these to look at, any interest at all?

[pickle9000]

Conductive inks do have uses, but not for making a pcb. They work well for making connections to ultra fine wires, in microphones for example.

I think it would be beneficial to show, everything has it's place.

[edavid]

I've been offered one of these to look at, any interest at all?

Sure, please try it out for us.

The problem I've had with conductive ink pens is that I don't need one very often, and the shelf life is poor, so I only get one or two uses out of each one

[apelly]

I'm kind of curious. No idea what I'd use it for though...

[Stonent]

I once repaired a Sun workstation keyboard with one of those conductive pens.  There had been water damage inside and most of the traces on the plastic membrane had corroded away. I retraced all the spots that didn't look good and restored the keyboard to working order.

[dexters_lab]

i repaired an old Atari keyboard the same way

i would see this has a repair tool, would be nice to see how well it works on other materials... kapton, fr4, etc

[Rory]

To reopen an old thread...

Got these as a gift from my mechanical engineering student son. Thought you would like to see what $45 USD gets you from them, post Kickstarter. It's a cute idea but I don't see much use for it outside of education or the novelty aspect.  Personally, I think they're very much overpriced.  No project book came with the basic kit, it's an additional $15.

[Neganur]

It's something I have a hard time to get my head around, non technical people I spoke to say they'd like such a pen and find the idea fun!
I would dismiss it after flashing an LED and probably cursing the erratic connections between the ink and anything else.
I think wires would be better and not ruin the learning experience.

But I am completely dismissing the fun part of this, drawing pretty pictures and then make stuff blink >.<
I would not be the one making money with it.

Conductive ink to repair circuits or use it in fabric to create antennas is a different story for me.