can this technique be used to manufacture ultra stable devices at home?

[coppercone2]

SiCr Resistors? Inductors deposited on glass rods?

I heard of silver on ceramic inductors being used in V2 rockets.


seems like you can coat a glass rod in metal and scrape it away with a knife lol

some kind of temperature regulation too, maybe alternate coatings with waterglass to make distributed thermistors over heaters?

[SilverSolder]

I would guess the material you coat, is more important (or as important) as what you coat it with.  You want thermal expansion/movement to be minimal in the direction that matters...

[coppercone2]

I feel like small ceramic objects would work well. I have thought about this often but the most commonly used technique requires metal powders connected to expensive flame guns which offer mechanical coatings (not necessarily very consistent), for shaft restorations. But it hardly matters and it might even benefit a shaft if it gets oil soaked into it (like a oil bronze bushing)



This is more 'lab friendly without feeling like a madman spraying fire lol, and I feel like flame spray technology requires too many odds and ends which are useful for nothing else (unlike vacuum systems etc that can be used for lots of things).. I mean unless you wanna repair hydraulic cylinders and pumps.. plus process tuning with trying to get a silver coat on something with silver powder sounds expensive and downright financially suicidal.

[SilverSolder]

Yes, ceramics seem to be the foundation for a lot of ultra high stability film resistors etc.

Maybe you can apply the metal film aided by some kind of lithographic process to mask off the unwanted areas?  you can get pretty precise UV sensitive film these days...

[coppercone2]

yea, he experiments with that in the video

I wonder what kind of results you would get if you tried to match a real part.

I think this would be most useful for medium power precision devices because they might be large by benefit (making the masking stuff from semiconductor ultra miniaturization industry less necessary).

I wonder what that would leave us with.

[coppercone2]

magnetics, power resistors, LF RF devices are interesting because.. often industry just can't get you something that much better then what you can make yourself (and they might just not, because try getting a e96 resistor value rated for 150W (hypothetical, probobly a pain).I know there are exceptions for everything (fancy wound square wire inductors for instance)..

I wonder if there is some kind of interesting application which is considered 'sane practice" (like winding a occasional inductor), and not a massive research project for every use.

[SilverSolder]

Normally, the "sane practice" is to buy something that has already been designed, tested, and proven to work in the real world.

Making stuff yourself is basically either a last resort, or a hobby, or something which has the potential to be a business!

[coppercone2]

winding your own coil is much different then trying to fabricate your own transistor. i want a deposition process thats like winding your own coil rather then a deposition process thats like trying to make a cpu out of 7400 logic

its the evolution of small manufacturing IMO

you can't really mock something like this

https://hamwaves.com/coils/en/index.html

[Conrad Hoffman]

Just for hobbyist fun, you could try making a very stable resistor by coating a piece of Zerodur with something resistive. I wonder if you can sputter Manganin? Coat both sides and make reference capacitors with guard electrodes. Also seems like you could make strain gauges on the right substrate. Thermocouples? Platinum RTDs? Not really interested in reinventing the transistor.

[SilverSolder]

Love the Zerodur idea, I had never heard of that material before. 

Maybe one could do the sputtering while actually measuring the resistance, capacitance, ratio, etc. of the device you are making - and stop the process when it is "just right"?  Might be as good as laser trimming...

[coppercone2]

wont the plasma on the surface form a very significant shunt? unless you turn off the stream to interrupt measurement

[SilverSolder]

You'd probably have to switch off to measure - but this process seems very "turn on and offable"?

An extension of that idea might be to figure out an ability to "direct the spray" to different parts of the object, for example to make an accurate ratio of two (or more) resistors. 

Looks like there may be plenty of "meat" on this whole concept...

[ramon]

Almost all interesting scientific experiments or production methods require vacuum and/or some kind of controlled atmosphere.

This is were most hobbyist hit the wall 

[branadic]

Just for hobbyist fun, you could try making a very stable resistor by coating a piece of Zerodur with something resistive. I wonder if you can sputter Manganin? Coat both sides and make reference capacitors with guard electrodes. Also seems like you could make strain gauges on the right substrate. Thermocouples? Platinum RTDs? Not really interested in reinventing the transistor.

Not sure about Manganin, as I've never seen a sputter target for it. You can have a look at website of Lesker: www.lesker.com
Zerodur is a very expensive material, while Al2O3 is commonly available also as sheets and also available in a modified version as Macor, which can be machined.

All what you are after is already done and thanks to direct imaging without the invest of masks, but with digital process chain. However, depositing a thin layer of something on something is only a minor part of the whole story. Trimming, packaging and repeatable specs are another big part.

-branadic-