New kickstarter - Voltera - Print - Paste - and toast :) your prototype board

[kaz911]

And another Kickstarter for the EE's (maybe)

The Voltera - a circuit printer that prints conductive ink on FR4 - and with isolation ink can do dual layer boards (from standard dual layer schematics - conversion done in software)

Once printed it can apply solder paste - - you then place the components - after which it can bake it (reflow) it at up to 250 degrees. No pick and place though *G*

Looks neat for quick prototyping if you don't like breathing to much acid.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/voltera/voltera-your-circuit-board-prototyping-machine

edit: They blasted to $74.000 - $4.000 past their goal in 45 minutes...

[mikerj]

Looks very neat.  I do wonder how strong the bond between the ink and the board is though, would be annoying to have components fall off a prototype board after a little knock or slight flex of the board.

[electr_peter]

If it works as good as they claim, it could be useful for some prototyping work.

However, I see one issue. What is the point to test PCB layout with such "simulation" when you don't have a real 2 layer PCB with tracks/vias/soldermask/silkscreen/...?

[rthorntn]

The main issue for me is the fact that you cannot use the Voltera reflow function on a board with Voltera printed traces.  As far as I can gather they need to work out how to stop the printed traces from being impacted by the heat, from the comments:

"You can solder components onto a printed board no problem. You can also dispense solder paste onto fabricated boards, place the components, and the printer will reflow them…Hence, eliminating the need for stencils.

We have had some success reflowing onto our printed boards, however it is still not in a state that we feel comfortable supporting our backers with. However, it is not a problem we may not be able to solve. We are actively working in the chemistry lab to get the reflow standards up to par so that we can confidently support this feature too!"

[lutkeveld]

Out of reach for me, hoping the local fablab will buy one

[edavid]

People are really buying a pig in a poke since they haven't published a price for the ink cartridges.  It seems like the ink cost will be around $5 (?) for a 5x7cm board, but I wonder how much clog clearing and general ink waste will be involved.  What happens if it ends up costing $20 for a board?  Or if they stop selling the ink after a year?

[kaz911]

People are really buying a pig in a poke since they haven't published a price for the ink cartridges.  It seems like the ink cost will be around $5 (?) for a 5x7cm board, but I wonder how much clog clearing and general ink waste will be involved.

If I cut the "processing" time down on etch-a-sketch - and don't need to handle the acid all the time - it is worth $5 - even $10 in total material cost.... 

I did back as a section 2 early bird - but there is still about 29 days left to reverse the decision if questions like prices does not get answered.

[mazurov]

The opening sentence of their pitch

Building hardware sucks!

tells me that they are not even trying to appeal to reasonable people. Like most ads they're selling promise of happiness to  those who don't know any better.

[electr_peter]

In The Amp Hour 236 Chris and Dave talked about it. Main points - 1) you essentially have to build something different (in comparison to real PCB) to use that thing (massive time investment for low gain), 2) for the price you can get excellent quick prototype PCB service for many boards (why bother with something else?). Otherwise looks good.

[EEVblog]

However, I see one issue. What is the point to test PCB layout with such "simulation" when you don't have a real 2 layer PCB with tracks/vias/soldermask/silkscreen/...?

It's a niche requirement area. You have to think about laying your boards out differently in order to use this thing, so not as easy as "just press print" like they claim.
There is little comparison between these printed boards and proper professional PCB that can be had for as little as $5.
You trading of the time convenience for having to lay our your board different, less robust, lack through hole parts etc.
People think this thing fills a need they think they have, but most are wrong.
But yeah, it's neat, and potentially a cool way to get quick protos.

[EEVblog]

tells me that they are not even trying to appeal to reasonable people. Like most ads they're selling promise of happiness to  those who don't know any better.

That's my problem with this thing (and other PCB printers).
They market it as a real replacement for getting a real board made. They really do think it solves everyone's problem of PCB lead time. It's not even close.
The way I look at it is it's simply neater way to prototype compared to veroboard or dead bug etc, but beign honest about that would not sell units, you have to sell the dream.

[EEVblog]

The main issue for me is the fact that you cannot use the Voltera reflow function on a board with Voltera printed traces.  As far as I can gather they need to work out how to stop the printed traces from being impacted by the heat

  Then what is the point of having that capability at all?

[Howardlong]

I can see the convenience, but once you've had some experience of making your own boards using conventional methods and have perfected your process, you can turn them round pretty quickly. I don't use a dedicated place to do my own boards, I use the kitchen (taking care not to etch the sink, you don't do that more than once!) and from start to finish it takes me half an hour to fab a single sided board. That includes getting the chemicals out, UV exposure, developing, etching, resist stripping and clearing it all away again. I can go down to 0.4mm pitch.

But the trick is to have a process, and it will take several attempts to get it right, so don't be afraid of failure, it is a learning thing. Also always use the same raw materials, especially the pre-sensitised boards.

[electr_peter]

Aside from solderability on printed traces question, what do you think about single side only printing? They claim to take gerbers of 2 layer PCB and print it on a single layer (with some non-conductive ink for bridges). That would mean that:

• initial board has to very sparse to fit everything on one side
• some packages have to be mounted dead-bug style (or swap the pins)

Thus, for most applications finished board would look like something complete different in comparison to equivalent normal 2 layer PCB. User also has to layout 2 boards - one normal 2 layer PCB and one "single" layer PCB (twice the time and twice the work).

To me this idea starts to seem like an elaborate alternative to breadboarding/home made board. It may work, but it is not a PCB.

[EEVblog]

Thus, for most applications finished board would look like something complete different in comparison to equivalent normal 2 layer PCB. User also has to layout 2 boards - one normal 2 layer PCB and one "single" layer PCB (twice the time and twice the work).
To me this idea starts to like an elaborate alternative to breadboarding/home made board. It may work, but it is not a PCB.

Correct. That's the same point I was making on the Amp Hour.

[iampoor]

The marketing of this is targetted twards people who have never laid out a board in their life I think.

Plus no mention of the cost of their machine. ELecrow will do 10  10cm by 10cm boards for 15$. Get dhl shipping and the turnaround time is 1 week (to the USA)

This machine seems like a hopeless toy for people who hate veroboard! By the time I make a schematic, lay out the board, and then print it, I could of already made it! I could see the benefit of doing a complex board on this, but good luck when you can only do single sided boards.

Oh......and they seem to have conveniently forgotten you cant use through hole parts.

[FrankenPC]

This has a high neat factor.  I'm going to put on rose colored glasses and imagine this might be a cool new avenue that future (CHEAPER) generations will find a place on my bench. 

Adding a small drill/router bit to the carriage so it can cut out holes and shapes prior to printing the paste would greatly add to it's value.

[kaz911]

The marketing of this is targetted twards people who have never laid out a board in their life I think.

Plus no mention of the cost of their machine. ELecrow will do 10  10cm by 10cm boards for 15$. Get dhl shipping and the turnaround time is 1 week (to the USA)

This machine seems like a hopeless toy for people who hate veroboard! By the time I make a schematic, lay out the board, and then print it, I could of already made it! I could see the benefit of doing a complex board on this, but good luck when you can only do single sided boards.

Oh......and they seem to have conveniently forgotten you cant use through hole parts.

yes you can get them for $10 - but where I live - it is terrible for shipping. My total cost for the $15 boards would be $45 with DHL.

Shipping with postal services are a gamble as parcels might get lost (50/50 chance at best).

Where I am it is also almost impossible to get things like acid for doing boards. Getting solder paste can be hard (most sellers don't stock so 6+ weeks delivery time unless you will take their 1+ year out of date paste of their hands) - so I have to import myself and got myself a "Hazardous Material Import License"

I am considering getting a mill vs the Voltera - but Othermill is twice the price (plus they don't ship outside of the USA) - if I ship it through my FF shipping will add another $200'ish to the price.

So who has any better suggestion?  Still got 26 days to change.... And the only reason I'm considering it is I'm tired of feeling the acid fumes. I can feel it on my teeth after 3 minutes in a well ventilated room even when wearing a mask.

[mux]

yes you can get them for $10 - but where I live - it is terrible for shipping. My total cost for the $15 boards would be $45 with DHL.

That's still pretty awesome, though. Not even 7 years ago I had to pay €600 for a 4-layer board with 5-day shipping (7 actual days turnaround). 3 years ago I had to pay €60 JUST for the board, without shipping. Now I can get everything, fast, good quality, for €45-55. And even the slow boat isn't that slow, if you really want the board to be dirt cheap.

Shipping with postal services are a gamble as parcels might get lost (50/50 chance at best).

I use chinese manufacturers for my business, NEVER had a single board go missing in 100+ orders. This may be a local issue.

So who has any better suggestion?  Still got 26 days to change.... And the only reason I'm considering it is I'm tired of feeling the acid fumes. I can feel it on my teeth after 3 minutes in a well ventilated room even when wearing a mask.

If you need a general purpose prototyping tool, there is no substitute for PCB mills. Get an LPKF, othermill, whatever. Just in the past 6 months I've seen 3 sub-€2000 second hand LPKF machines on our national second hand website (Marktplaats.nl), plus a university getting rid of their old machine for less than €1000 including mill bits. If you look around you can get a good deal. There are tons of these machines around.

Do keep in mind though, that as with Voltera: it's not nearly as cheap as chinese PCBs. You break/blunt on average one mill bit (€90+) for every one or two euro card sized boards. The bare copper clad boards aren't necessarily cheap either, but you do have the added choice in copper thickness.

Also, the older machines need to have a special computer (something that runs DOS and the specific version of their piece of absolute shit software) as well as usually a high-suction vacuum cleaner to function. So there are minor extra costs.

[rs20]

Print, paste and reflow your boards?? More like print OR paste and reflow your boards...

I just don't understand why people feel the need to lie like this. This would have been moderately interesting if they just focussed on the multilayer printing part (is there any limit to how many layers it can lay down? fascinating possibilities...) but they stuck to their initial spec, even when they failed to achieve it, choosing to lie by omission instead. Compromise is at the core of engineering; lying is at the core of marketing.

[hamdi.tn]

I like  the idea , and i think the THT and 2 layer is not a big deal , since i guess you can drill a board fill the hole with the conductive ink and print the circuit twice , one layer at the time on different side with no need to the non conductive ink. but what i think it may be a problem is how good is that conductive ink so it can't cause any problem for some serious frequency range. and how hard this ink stick to the board and will not be damaged by excessive rework and soldering on the pad.

[kaz911]

The Voltera Team just won the James Dyson Award for 2015 - Congrats!



The latest update - https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/voltera/voltera-your-circuit-board-prototyping-machine/posts/1395370

and they announced beta version of "reflow" with/on their own material - so now you can (in beta) print the design - manually place components - then reflow. That was one of the " criticized issues " in original "design"

counting the days.. First batch shipping next week they say (5 cheap and 20 v expensive printers) - I have one in the cheap 2nd batch in about 3 months? time (was scheduled for January but with a bit of delay - but not too bad for a kickstarter at all)

[snoopy]

Wasn't there an australian kickstarter campaign that did a similar thing but using ink jet cartridges ?

But what about drilling holes for through hole components ?

They should forget about the pcb side of it. Just focus on solder paste dispensing and pick and place on existing pcb's. Now that would be a great prototyping product

[FireFlower]

Hmmmm... could we hack just those print heads to work with out own self build CRC machines?

[FrankT]

A first look on hackaday...

http://hackaday.com/2015/11/20/review-voltera-v-one-pcb-printer/