I think i have some recipes from when we did this in my surface treatment course at DTU. I don't know if i can link the files here but send me a message and I'll send what i have on the subject.
Edison took the discoveries of people working for "him" and called them his own...Edison he is not, more on par with Tesla, let everyone enjoy the secrets of discovery...
@@DrTeddyMMM Actually, if I hire you to help find, for example, the best filament for an incandescent light bulb, and you find it, it's still MY invention.
@@UncleKennysPlace Give credit where credit is due.. Do a little research, Edison was a dick...exactly why when Tesla worked for him Tesla told him to fuck off and left his employ...
You're endurance is amazing. There had to be times through this project when you considered giving up. I am also impressed with your ability to source some of these chemical components from commercial products. Excellent work!
@@zack88005 lol. why is it that so most people younger then 40 have no clue when to use what? In Sweden we have the same thing with "de" and "dem" (they / them)
@@Stoffemollan A lot of my typos with those are mobile keyboard related, where I didn't proof it well enough. See, just there, you meant "than" and not "then" but no one catches every single one. But also, education isn't widely considered important enough to fund very well in this "great" freedom-land, which holds back a staggering number of students.
When I was < 10 in the 80s, my dad bought cheap as tea bags that, oddly, came with a tiny (~4cm) ceramic animal. Saturdays were spent drinking tea, and plating and etching circuit boards. One saturday I asked if we could plate one of the tiny animals. Sure enough, a few weeks later my dad had obtained the supplies from his job that we'd need to plate the tiny animals. FWIW he worked at a chemical manufacturer and supplier in silicon valley. We used a plating process very similar to this... however we cleaned the animals in a process using Dawn dish soap and ammonia, and had good results.We plated a dozen or more animals with copper over a few weekends. My dad had a background in chemical engineering. Once we ran out of animals to plate, my dad used some of the chemicals to make explosives. The copper made brilliant blue-green sparks and flames. A few of the explosives were "lit" by dripping ammonia on them. It was a lot of fun! I took the copper animals to school to show off what my dad and I had been up to on the weekends. Many of my classmates thought it was pretty cool, of course quite a few thought it was stupid and lame, or just didn't believe me. My teachers were impressed and a bit concerned. It was a lot of fun... until... One teacher asked how we were disposing of the "dangerous" chemicals. I remember being asked specifically if we put the chemicals down the toilet. That's when I talked about using some of the chemicals to make the explosives/fireworks. "Some of them you can pour ammonia on and they explode!" My teachers went from mostly impressed if a bit concerned to extremely, feverishly, concerned that my dad was making extremely dangerous chemical mixtures that were going to blow-up his apartment, or create highly toxic gases, and kill me. So concerned were they that they got police and/or child services involved.
Dang, your dad seems cool as hell! I LOVED all things science and chemistry as a kid in the 80's. Unfortunately, my parents... weren't so much. Luckily for me, one of my parents' best friends was an engineer at Rocketdyne. He was always over hanging out with us and he really fed my curiosity and love of science from a super young age. Like, some of my earliest memories were him explaining literal rocket science to me as a 4-5 year old. 😁 He'd also get me NASA and Space Shuttle Swag for birthdays and Christmas.
Excellent video sir! I worked in the PCB industry for many years. We were able to make our own eless Cu baths, but could never match the stability and speed of the proprietary stuff. One quick note, we always had a fluoroboric acid dip called an accelerator between the catalyst and eless bath. I was given to understand that this removes the exposed tin from the colloid exposing the platinum to the eless solution. Thanks for the awesome work you did to make this process work for the home gamer!
That copper oxide process at the end is really interesting for not requiring a bath. If you modded a 3d printer with a laser as a second head, you could put down copper in places inaccessible to a bath.
this sounds like a way to go. with a toolchanger you could have 3 heads: 1 normal plastic, 1 copper oxide enriched filament, 1 laser head. It would be quite doable to make your own filament at home with off the shelf machines, just slap on a volumetric pump which dispenses the copper oxide into the bottom of the polymer funnel. then like you said print normally, swap to the copper oxide filament and put down copper, then cover with normal plastic, which would give it strain relief from the problem he said about it cracking. I think you could also put down multiple layers of the copper oxide filament and laser them to create a much thicker power trace. Really interesting for fully integrated wiring!
If you vibrated the part while in the plating bath every X seconds, it should shake off the hydrogen bubbles. Perhaps by mounting the piece on a rigid "stick" instead of a wire, and having a small motor with an off-center weight attached to it (like pretty much all cheap vibration happens). Or maybe a transducer? Think of it like smacking the side of a glass to shake soda bubbles off.
Wouldn't it have to be an ultrasonic bath that can also maintain the temp and stirring requirements of the copper solution? That's why the transducer idea appeals to me.
But for every smart person like Ben, there are X number of criminals, brain-dead drug abusers and people leeching off the system and not contributing. Unfortunate truth...
yeah and i wonder what happens if the all people are "equal" (kill whites or mix them, see europe crisis) Its the declared goal of the leftist ( google EU doctrine replacement Migration).I think the movie ideocrazy describes it very well. th-cam.com/video/CXSz0bA9CiE/w-d-xo.html
If you want to save a penny or two, pool algaecides (at least the common ones you get in Australia) are a higher concentration of Benzalkonium Chloride than Wet & Forget and much cheaper!
Good call. The label of "Pool Time Algicide 50%" I just looked up on a US big-box site says it's 50% alkyl dimethyl benzyl ammonium chloride. Looks like "Clorox Pool and Spa Green Algae Eliminator" on a different colour of big-box site is the same.
Awesome and inspiring cutting edge stuff Ben. These experiments must have taken a lot of time. I truly appreciate your dedication to openly advancing the state of the art!
Dude. Your projects are intense. Consistently impressed with the depth and deep explaination of all your stuff. Much better than my half-arsed attempts littered around the workshop.
Question 1: For makers to practically use this process, they'll need a way to properly dispose of the waste. How do you do that, and what are some things one could do to minimize the volume of waste generated by the process? Question 2: Did you try Triflow Dry, by any chance? Rather than an oil, it's just PTFE and paraffin disolved in an aliphatic hydrocarbon solvent, and it leaves a dry PTFE/wax film after the solvent flashes (It's fantastic on bike chains because the dry film doesn't accumulate road grime). Awesome video as usual!
This is really great! I always wondered if I'd ever be able to do via's in a makerspace without expensive equipment. Definitely try this out as soon as I get the chemical supplies.
It is so refreshing to see you specifically listing the hydration specifications of your chemicals. Many metal salts have multiple hydration formulas, and with your kind genius for explanations, you allow the folks following shake-ily in your sure footsteps, to have success and a tiny feeling of genius as well. I follow your channel with excitement, always something new, like getting a new scientific American in the mail.😸
Have you tried acrylic or polycarb sheet instead of 3d prints for flat parts ? Re. the direct laser+copper oxide method, how about post-electroplating to thicken up the copper? There is a UK company that has a process where they inkjet print catalyst, then electroless plate - a few years ago they did a transparent arduino. I wonder if there may be a way to pattern the catalyst to avoid needing a laser- screen-print perhaps?
im not very fluent in chemistry, but wouldnt it be an issue that all the traces should be connected to the same electrical potential if you want to post-electroplate? how could the connections be made? and then be erased? PS: i love ur vids, such a massive amount of knowledge.
I was thinking of just soldering over them to thicken up the trace, but electroplating would likely be more reliable. But as for other plastics, any non-thermoset plastics won’t fare well under the heat of a soldering iron. It seems that it may be easier to simply apply a photoresist to the piece of plastic and electric-less plate the non-resisted areas as you would a standard PCB, though that method, along with the inkjet one, likely requires a flat surface. Plating the entire piece of plastic and etching away the unwanted copper is also an option.
@@martinwestermeyergondonnea84 Electroless plating is an entirely chemical process; no electrical connection is needed. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electroplating#Electroless_deposition Nickel is the most common metal to be plated using electroless techniques. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electroless_nickel_plating The tin plating you often see on PCBs is usually done using an electroless method.
@@ergohack yes yes, i understood that. I was talking about the response from @mikeselectricstuff where he proposes that after the electroless process, apply a coating using electroplating
Beautiful job on this. I agree with you that figuring out the chemicals to do through-hole plating of vias on circuit boards has been a well-kept secret. You just showed us finally how to do it. Moreover, the technique to do it on plastic is even more exciting.
Thank you for having the sense of cominuty to share your wonderful discoveries and processes with all of us. I would never be able to attempt any of this for lack of equipment but people like myself are able to access the thrill of such projects through your channel, so THANK YOU.
To protect against flux getting under the traces, have you tried to cover everything except contact pads in solder mask, so copper edges are always under the solder mask.
I think the problem would be that if you have the equipment to precisely place the solder mask on the edges of a pad, while still having enough solder paste/flux on the pad, You probably aren't doing it at the hobbiest level anymore.
@@Prophes0r you could do that by mounting a slightly defocused low power UV laser on a 3d printer or laser cutter and then using it to do a raster on photoresist solder mask.
You learn new things every day. Thanks for sharing! :) If you could make electrical contact with each trace, could you then electroplate them to give them a better finish and better conductive properties?
Could you use the copper traces from the copper-bearing epoxy as the starting point to further plating? It seems like that would be a good shortcut around the moss kill steps. Also, it might be less susceptible to lifting from the flux.
Would love to know that too. Could be interesting to combine this with 3D printed copper filled filament. But maybe the burning creates a layer of degraded plastic behind the copper trace so adhesion is crappy.
I was wondering the same thing. Once you have the copper layer from the epoxy, could you use a common electroplating process to thicken and strengthen the copper layer into something that is practical to use?
My uneducated guess is that the copper particles are much bigger than the plastic / epoxy molecules so they are encapsulated and not available for reacting.
some 5 years ago i conducted my own experiments - mainly for plating vias. I did not know about anything but electroplating, so I tried to make the surface conductive with something like graphite powder. And it worked quite well but the adhesion between the copper and the Plastic was almost nothing. Plus I added quite a lot copper to the traces that were already there and around the Vias but very little copper in the vias - and no copper at all when the drill holes were too small. The reduced copper traces in epoxy are not strong, but could you electroplate them to make them stick, or would the (semi?)conductivity of Copper(II) short all the traces anyway? I also tried re-melting the toner on printed paper or foil to have it stick to graphite or copper powder and then electroplate it to a functional thickness, but I never got continuous conductivity for the plating proscess
I have to tell you how much I admire your mind and tenacity for the underlying sciences of what you have shared here. You are truely a tribute to your fellow man.
It would be interesting to see if you could use the Tollen's Test directly into the circuit design to deposit a layer of silver before plating copper, or instead of using the copper. If I'm not mistaken, and I could be, the silver deposition should hold tighter to the plastic than the copper
So might be possible covering FDM printed part by this solution (epoxy + copper oxide), lasering it, then using galvanic method to thicken/improve this copper traces? But i doubt this is practical.
This video is by far one of the most valuable I've ever stumbled on, the fact that you reverse engineered an extremely lucrative process and then broke it down for everyone for free, step by step, points to how much of a treasure you are.
I don't deserve to even see inside your lab let alone see what you're creating. You're a genius Sir, that much is evident. Thank you for sharing your experiments with us.
How about indexing the 3D prints so after you apply the copper to the print, you can put the part back in the printer and continuing to print more plastic on top? This could generate multiple layer PCB's and also potentially be used to create a solder mask that could be used to assist in keeping the flux from getting under the copper if the copper lands were a bit larger than the mask, so the mask covered the exposed edges of the copper.
Great video as usual, have you tried silicone based oils? in my experience , after been burned by a laser, it turns into very hydrophilic silica nanoparticules that sticks very well to the surface.
How do the fancy pulsed-laser-activated catalyst parts get around the flux problem? Is it just a result of the catalyst being embedded in the plastic rather than coating it?
Man, you always have these interesting vids... Love your tenacity for researching topics like this. I hope you continue with this line of research, a diy person being able to make 3d printed electronics would be such a game changer...
@@whatevernamegoeshere3644 No, he said the oxygen was to stabilize the solution. The stirring action was supposed to be an added benefit by turned out to be a negative.
Karl Koscher I was wondering that too, many ICs are elevated a few mil off the board anyway, so having slightly low ICs could help. Maybe even a dual copper coating process could be used to make the regular traces and some select SMD parts still properly elevated, and the pitch sensitive parts lowered.
Robert Murry Smith (and probably others too) make a conductive ink that is graphite (or was it graphene?) based, and use that to provide the conductive surface to electroplate things. You'll see (for example) tree leaves completely electroplated in copper using this method. It's ability to stick to things (ie: plastic) would simply depend on what binder is in the ink. Couldn't you make electroplated copper circuits this way? edit: now that i think about it, what if you just drew onto the object with an ordinary leaded (ie: graphite) pencil - and then tried to electroplate that? It might not stick well.
I've been meaning to try this out for a long time now. I suspect that for flat shapes like PCB traces, the adhesion wouldn't be good enough to make a sturdy trace, but if you're 3D printing the substrate, it's possible that you could raise or lower traces in the substrate so that the face and [possibly non-vertical] sides (and any surface texture left on these by your production process, such as FDM layer lines) are all coated with conductive ink, increasing its ability to stick and, with the right geometry, making it impossible to pull traces straight off without bending or breaking the copper itself. No idea whether this would be enough to keep traces from coming off, though. It's possible you could even print plates with raised, slightly outward-canted traces and 'stamp' them face-down into a bath of ink so that the traces but not the top surface of the plate get covered in conductive ink, which could then be electroplated and would hold on to the plastic by virtue of its shape in addition to whatever strength the glue had.
@@TheOfficialCzex even PLA emissions should be vented. No one should be anywhere near laser cut or 3D printed polymers and proper air collection/removal should be in place.
Hey, Ben just out of curiosity have you ever seen the channel ROBRENZ ? Amazing machinist and some electronics content too. Seems like a channel that you may enjoy, I certainly do. Thanks for all the awesome original content you create.
Your knowledge is legit inspiring. You've helped my interest in science come back into full effect. Too much focusing on Cisco & virtualization stuff for me lately.
Stupid question, wouldn't it be easier to sputter some copper on a piece of plastic and then put the whole thing in a copper sulfate bath to grow your trace according to your spec ?
I think the end goal here to develop _an accessible method for making (3d printed) plastic parts with integral circuit traces_ rather than _a plastic part with integral circuit traces_ . Assuming that that's the case, then sputtering's probably off the table; AFAIK, 3D printers and laser cutters are fairly common in hackerspaces (and other similarly themed places), but I suspect that sputtering setups aren't.
Probably not. Sputtering onto plastic is pretty difficult, the adhesion is really bad (depending on plastic). Really you want to sputter Ti first, then place a layer of Cu on, either by sputtering or electroplating.
@@SuperAWaC might be doable using conductive silver ink. Soldering it would likely be destructive though. Even if you managed to not put it on fire, for example by soldering under an inert atmosphere, would still likely char the paper. This could make the final product unsuitable even as a circuit board because of conductive carbon formation. You might still be able to pull it off with some plastic material having the outward appearance of approximately glossy paper.
You, sir, are a trailblazer and a True Scientist. Thank you for all your fastidious R&D and, most importantly, for sharing it all with the global community. I will now be using your technique at the beginning of next year, rather than having to conduct my own extensive (but undoubtedly far sloppier) experiments on the plated copper dissolution method.
The copper sulfate is sold to pour down drains, tartrates are found in food, the lye, sodium carbonate, and the others are all sold over the counter and are generally drain disposal safe. Even the tin compounds are not toxic. Worst case you mix them all together and the copper drops out as a dust.
pixelpatter01 I more mean the formaldehyde; it’s pretty nasty stuff I can’t imagine putting it down the drain will do the environment any favours Even in low concentration
Copper ions are considered a poison for water organisms. So I was always told, not to dispose of the waste from PCB etching (spent etchant) down the drain. Tin compounds are also dangerous to aquatic liveforms, so it is used in the paint to protect ships hulls (anti-fouling paint). Formaldehyde was used in chemical toilets, but AFAIK not any more as it is a potent antimicrobial and interferes with biological sewage treatment facilities. All together better do not put it down the drain. Treat it like PCB making waste which also occurs often in hackerspaces.
There is a big difference between putting a gallon or two of copper solutions down a drain and dumping some sore of real hazardous chemical like mercury, petroleum solvents or insecticides which persist in the environment. If you were running a manufacturing plant you should have a plan to deal with the waste, but as a home experimenter dumping a product (copper sulfate) made to be dumped into a drain to kill roots isn't like the end of the world. Every recreational vehicle recommends putting a formaldehyde product in the sewage holding tanks, and when the tank gets emptied it goes right to a sewage treatment plant. The trace amounts of non organic tin in a home process are not going to poison anybody unless they drink the solution.
Don't completely follow the laser process. Can't you better just completely copper coat the part and burn away the copper parts you don't need instead?
burning copper? like, boiling/vaporizing copper? I don't think thats something you can do with a laser like that... The boiling point of copper is something like 2500°C. Also, the plastic would melt in no time.
This comes down to two problems really. The first is the stability of the traces. If you have the traces raised up above the surface of the substrate, they'll have worse adherence to the plastic and more prone to breaking. The thicker the traces you want the worse this problem becomes, as you have to make the part coating even thicker, with more material to laser through. Having the traces sunk down in a channel means you can basically make them as thick as you want my just cutting a deeper channel. Mounting small parts to the traces also becomes much more of a pain in the ass if traces are raised significantly. Two is the power of the laser. Vaporizing metal as opposed to plastic requires several times the power of cutting through plastic. When cutting you would also need to be VERY careful otherwise you could easily drill a hole straight through the plastic if it was set to the required power for copper. Its also going to inevitably vaporize a significant amount of plastic underneath the copper anyways, which compounds the first issue. Oh and not to mention the time/power usage difference. Cutting the entire part in copper as opposed to the traces in plastic would take a huge amount more power and time to acheive
There is a prototype PCB machine which does burn the copper off the epoxy. But it needs an expensive UV pulse laser. Something like a frequency trippled Nd:YAG. I think, they said, it would not work with green.
But even that prototype PCB machine won't be able to burn away copper from a SLA plastic. That probably only works on proper FR4 pcb. 3d printed SLA would simply melt.
(Wow, first three comments are utterly meaningless unless you're crazy insane...) seems like they're gone now, cept for one.... Anyway... what's the capacitance between the power and groundplanes? as well as the capacitance between two differential traces? Great video ! as usual.
I had no idea how involved making a PCB would be. I mean they're so cheap now that I guess I assumed they were easy to make. I'm sure economies of scale in addition to refinement help here, but still, what a process! Also it's impressive that you were able to figure all this out and get something that worked at the end.
Incredible work! The electroless copper recipe alone is something I've been trying but failing at for a while 🤯
Marco! Where have you been?! We (i) need your videos :(
been raising my own little pet project, it's not quite as ground braking as this but I'm very excited about it
I think i have some recipes from when we did this in my surface treatment course at DTU. I don't know if i can link the files here but send me a message and I'll send what i have on the subject.
@@reps Osmu?
man you are Alive.......
Brilliant work as always! Most impressive is how you have managed to keep a wooden tabletop in pristine condition in your lab.
You madman. I'm amazed that you can dive deeply into so many different topics with so much dedication.
He is a real modern Edison, right?
Nah.. Edison was jealous of his secrets and willing to do anything to hinder the competition... Now... Tesla on the other hand.
Edison took the discoveries of people working for "him" and called them his own...Edison he is not, more on par with Tesla, let everyone enjoy the secrets of discovery...
@@DrTeddyMMM Actually, if I hire you to help find, for example, the best filament for an incandescent light bulb, and you find it, it's still MY invention.
@@UncleKennysPlace Give credit where credit is due..
Do a little research, Edison was a dick...exactly why when Tesla worked for him Tesla told him to fuck off and left his employ...
You're endurance is amazing. There had to be times through this project when you considered giving up. I am also impressed with your ability to source some of these chemical components from commercial products. Excellent work!
Your*
Lol, love your channel
@@zack88005 lol. why is it that so most people younger then 40 have no clue when to use what? In Sweden we have the same thing with "de" and "dem" (they / them)
@@Stoffemollan A lot of my typos with those are mobile keyboard related, where I didn't proof it well enough. See, just there, you meant "than" and not "then" but no one catches every single one. But also, education isn't widely considered important enough to fund very well in this "great" freedom-land, which holds back a staggering number of students.
I think the research you did is enough for a degree thesis, crazy dedication!
Rexus King And this is the stuff he does for fun. Pretty amazing.
your channel is such a gem. thanks for your work.
When I was < 10 in the 80s, my dad bought cheap as tea bags that, oddly, came with a tiny (~4cm) ceramic animal. Saturdays were spent drinking tea, and plating and etching circuit boards. One saturday I asked if we could plate one of the tiny animals. Sure enough, a few weeks later my dad had obtained the supplies from his job that we'd need to plate the tiny animals. FWIW he worked at a chemical manufacturer and supplier in silicon valley. We used a plating process very similar to this... however we cleaned the animals in a process using Dawn dish soap and ammonia, and had good results.We plated a dozen or more animals with copper over a few weekends. My dad had a background in chemical engineering. Once we ran out of animals to plate, my dad used some of the chemicals to make explosives. The copper made brilliant blue-green sparks and flames. A few of the explosives were "lit" by dripping ammonia on them. It was a lot of fun! I took the copper animals to school to show off what my dad and I had been up to on the weekends. Many of my classmates thought it was pretty cool, of course quite a few thought it was stupid and lame, or just didn't believe me. My teachers were impressed and a bit concerned. It was a lot of fun... until... One teacher asked how we were disposing of the "dangerous" chemicals. I remember being asked specifically if we put the chemicals down the toilet. That's when I talked about using some of the chemicals to make the explosives/fireworks. "Some of them you can pour ammonia on and they explode!" My teachers went from mostly impressed if a bit concerned to extremely, feverishly, concerned that my dad was making extremely dangerous chemical mixtures that were going to blow-up his apartment, or create highly toxic gases, and kill me. So concerned were they that they got police and/or child services involved.
Then what happened once they were involved?
Dang, your dad seems cool as hell! I LOVED all things science and chemistry as a kid in the 80's. Unfortunately, my parents... weren't so much. Luckily for me, one of my parents' best friends was an engineer at Rocketdyne. He was always over hanging out with us and he really fed my curiosity and love of science from a super young age. Like, some of my earliest memories were him explaining literal rocket science to me as a 4-5 year old. 😁
He'd also get me NASA and Space Shuttle Swag for birthdays and Christmas.
This guy is a real DIY Doctor and deserves a statue in his local town plaza.
Hats off to your detailed scientific approach! Thanks for sharing!
Excellent video sir! I worked in the PCB industry for many years. We were able to make our own eless Cu baths, but could never match the stability and speed of the proprietary stuff.
One quick note, we always had a fluoroboric acid dip called an accelerator between the catalyst and eless bath. I was given to understand that this removes the exposed tin from the colloid exposing the platinum to the eless solution.
Thanks for the awesome work you did to make this process work for the home gamer!
If people idolized scientists like this man rather than celebrities, imagine what the world could be.
That copper oxide process at the end is really interesting for not requiring a bath. If you modded a 3d printer with a laser as a second head, you could put down copper in places inaccessible to a bath.
this sounds like a way to go. with a toolchanger you could have 3 heads: 1 normal plastic, 1 copper oxide enriched filament, 1 laser head. It would be quite doable to make your own filament at home with off the shelf machines, just slap on a volumetric pump which dispenses the copper oxide into the bottom of the polymer funnel. then like you said print normally, swap to the copper oxide filament and put down copper, then cover with normal plastic, which would give it strain relief from the problem he said about it cracking. I think you could also put down multiple layers of the copper oxide filament and laser them to create a much thicker power trace. Really interesting for fully integrated wiring!
As usual on this channel, the video is so clear that there is not much to ask regarding the process shown.
If you vibrated the part while in the plating bath every X seconds, it should shake off the hydrogen bubbles. Perhaps by mounting the piece on a rigid "stick" instead of a wire, and having a small motor with an off-center weight attached to it (like pretty much all cheap vibration happens). Or maybe a transducer?
Think of it like smacking the side of a glass to shake soda bubbles off.
I was thinking he could run it in one of those hypersonic cleaning tubs.
I see potential in the idea of tacking a piezotransducer to the workpiece...
Ultrasonic bath perhaps?
Wouldn't it have to be an ultrasonic bath that can also maintain the temp and stirring requirements of the copper solution? That's why the transducer idea appeals to me.
I like that idea. I was also thinking that one could bubble nitrogen gas instead.
As always, facinating. Gives me faith in society that we have smart dudes like your self pursuing STEM for professions and just shear curiosity.
But for every smart person like Ben, there are X number of criminals, brain-dead drug abusers and people leeching off the system and not contributing. Unfortunate truth...
yeah and i wonder what happens if the all people are "equal" (kill whites or mix them, see europe crisis) Its the declared goal of the leftist ( google EU doctrine replacement Migration).I think the movie ideocrazy describes it very well.
th-cam.com/video/CXSz0bA9CiE/w-d-xo.html
That is an epic piece of DIY research Ben, thanks so much for sharing!
If you want to save a penny or two, pool algaecides (at least the common ones you get in Australia) are a higher concentration of Benzalkonium Chloride than Wet & Forget and much cheaper!
Good call. The label of "Pool Time Algicide 50%" I just looked up on a US big-box site says it's 50% alkyl dimethyl benzyl ammonium chloride. Looks like "Clorox Pool and Spa Green Algae Eliminator" on a different colour of big-box site is the same.
Third alternative - it is the active ingredient in Lysol (and other) sanitizing wipes, at 0.26%
Awesome and inspiring cutting edge stuff Ben. These experiments must have taken a lot of time. I truly appreciate your dedication to openly advancing the state of the art!
Dude. Your projects are intense.
Consistently impressed with the depth and deep explaination of all your stuff. Much better than my half-arsed attempts littered around the workshop.
Probably the best science and tech channel on TH-cam.
Your dedication to thoroughly exploring a topic is most impressive. Thank you for sharing your findings.
Question 1: For makers to practically use this process, they'll need a way to properly dispose of the waste. How do you do that, and what are some things one could do to minimize the volume of waste generated by the process?
Question 2: Did you try Triflow Dry, by any chance? Rather than an oil, it's just PTFE and paraffin disolved in an aliphatic hydrocarbon solvent, and it leaves a dry PTFE/wax film after the solvent flashes (It's fantastic on bike chains because the dry film doesn't accumulate road grime).
Awesome video as usual!
Your contributions to open sourcing knowledge are just amazing. Thank you so much for your efforts!
Thank you for researching and making such in-depth videos on topics that are very elusive to many of us!
This is really great! I always wondered if I'd ever be able to do via's in a makerspace without expensive equipment. Definitely try this out as soon as I get the chemical supplies.
Your videos are not just educational, they are also inspirational.
You are just awesome, not only figuring these things out but wanting to share the findings, true science right there.
You are a fantastic man. Never ceases to amaze me how you raise the bar and innovate in the DIY space. Simply incredible.
It is so refreshing to see you specifically listing the hydration specifications of your chemicals. Many metal salts have multiple hydration formulas, and with your kind genius for explanations, you allow the folks following shake-ily in your sure footsteps, to have success and a tiny feeling of genius as well. I follow your channel with excitement, always something new, like getting a new scientific American in the mail.😸
Have you tried acrylic or polycarb sheet instead of 3d prints for flat parts ?
Re. the direct laser+copper oxide method, how about post-electroplating to thicken up the copper?
There is a UK company that has a process where they inkjet print catalyst, then electroless plate - a few years ago they did a transparent arduino. I wonder if there may be a way to pattern the catalyst to avoid needing a laser- screen-print perhaps?
im not very fluent in chemistry, but wouldnt it be an issue that all the traces should be connected to the same electrical potential if you want to post-electroplate? how could the connections be made? and then be erased?
PS: i love ur vids, such a massive amount of knowledge.
I was thinking of just soldering over them to thicken up the trace, but electroplating would likely be more reliable. But as for other plastics, any non-thermoset plastics won’t fare well under the heat of a soldering iron. It seems that it may be easier to simply apply a photoresist to the piece of plastic and electric-less plate the non-resisted areas as you would a standard PCB, though that method, along with the inkjet one, likely requires a flat surface. Plating the entire piece of plastic and etching away the unwanted copper is also an option.
@@martinwestermeyergondonnea84 Electroless plating is an entirely chemical process; no electrical connection is needed.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electroplating#Electroless_deposition
Nickel is the most common metal to be plated using electroless techniques. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electroless_nickel_plating
The tin plating you often see on PCBs is usually done using an electroless method.
@@ergohack yes yes, i understood that. I was talking about the response from @mikeselectricstuff where he proposes that after the electroless process, apply a coating using electroplating
@@Scrogan i think applying heat to those traces would most probably break em
This is incredible! Thank you for working at this--I loved it!
Ben, I don't have a question but I wanted to say thank you for your inspiration. It's fantastic motivation to make more stuff!
Amazing! Such great information, thanks for researching and sharing.
Beautiful job on this. I agree with you that figuring out the chemicals to do through-hole plating of vias on circuit boards has been a well-kept secret. You just showed us finally how to do it. Moreover, the technique to do it on plastic is even more exciting.
The level of detail and work in this video is mind blowing! Amazing job!
You are a genius. I love your work. Thank you so much for all of your videos. Please make sure they don't all disappear when TH-cam goes away.
Always something new and interesting you teach about.
Very cool results, thanks for sharing the process.
Thank you for having the sense of cominuty to share your wonderful discoveries and processes with all of us. I would never be able to attempt any of this for lack of equipment but people like myself are able to access the thrill of such projects through your channel, so THANK YOU.
You have the absolute most badass garage! Form Labs printers are AMAZING!
To protect against flux getting under the traces, have you tried to cover everything except contact pads in solder mask, so copper edges are always under the solder mask.
Антон Южаков Maybe it would be possible to somehow do the solder masking with a 3d-printer again? Maybe this doesn't produce enough adhesion however?
Solder masking is usually done with UV reactive compound and a stencil.
I think the problem would be that if you have the equipment to precisely place the solder mask on the edges of a pad, while still having enough solder paste/flux on the pad, You probably aren't doing it at the hobbiest level anymore.
@@Prophes0r you could do that by mounting a slightly defocused low power UV laser on a 3d printer or laser cutter and then using it to do a raster on photoresist solder mask.
Paint it on and laser it off?
You learn new things every day. Thanks for sharing! :) If you could make electrical contact with each trace, could you then electroplate them to give them a better finish and better conductive properties?
You, Sir, are absolutely awesome! I'm starting to understand that the DIY SEM is only the tip of the iceberg... literally awestruck, I am. Thank you!
Thank you so much for sharing the electroless copper solution!
Could you use the copper traces from the copper-bearing epoxy as the starting point to further plating? It seems like that would be a good shortcut around the moss kill steps. Also, it might be less susceptible to lifting from the flux.
Would love to know that too. Could be interesting to combine this with 3D printed copper filled filament. But maybe the burning creates a layer of degraded plastic behind the copper trace so adhesion is crappy.
Yes and copper oxide filament would mean you could do this with fdm
Would love to know more! So the copper oxide would turn into copper when burning the plastic top layer off?
I was wondering the same thing.
Once you have the copper layer from the epoxy, could you use a common electroplating process to thicken and strengthen the copper layer into something that is practical to use?
My uneducated guess is that the copper particles are much bigger than the plastic / epoxy molecules so they are encapsulated and not available for reacting.
some 5 years ago i conducted my own experiments - mainly for plating vias. I did not know about anything but electroplating, so I tried to make the surface conductive with something like graphite powder. And it worked quite well but the adhesion between the copper and the Plastic was almost nothing. Plus I added quite a lot copper to the traces that were already there and around the Vias but very little copper in the vias - and no copper at all when the drill holes were too small.
The reduced copper traces in epoxy are not strong, but could you electroplate them to make them stick, or would the (semi?)conductivity of Copper(II) short all the traces anyway?
I also tried re-melting the toner on printed paper or foil to have it stick to graphite or copper powder and then electroplate it to a functional thickness, but I never got continuous conductivity for the plating proscess
I have to tell you how much I admire your mind and tenacity for the underlying sciences of what you have shared here. You are truely a tribute to your fellow man.
So this is what is possible if you put in the work.
Good job man, I am impressed.
It would be interesting to see if you could use the Tollen's Test directly into the circuit design to deposit a layer of silver before plating copper, or instead of using the copper. If I'm not mistaken, and I could be, the silver deposition should hold tighter to the plastic than the copper
So might be possible covering FDM printed part by this solution (epoxy + copper oxide), lasering it, then using galvanic method to thicken/improve this copper traces?
But i doubt this is practical.
There are also many more plastics than PLA.. PETG and PC come to mind.
Clean & electroplate.
Probably there could be some plastic stabilizer like that use for tires in vulkanization process.
This video is by far one of the most valuable I've ever stumbled on, the fact that you reverse engineered an extremely lucrative process and then broke it down for everyone for free, step by step, points to how much of a treasure you are.
I don't deserve to even see inside your lab let alone see what you're creating.
You're a genius Sir, that much is evident.
Thank you for sharing your experiments with us.
How about indexing the 3D prints so after you apply the copper to the print, you can put the part back in the printer and continuing to print more plastic on top? This could generate multiple layer PCB's and also potentially be used to create a solder mask that could be used to assist in keeping the flux from getting under the copper if the copper lands were a bit larger than the mask, so the mask covered the exposed edges of the copper.
That was a cool video!
Mmmmmmm..
This is a fantastic body of research!... I enjoyed your attention to details... Please continue on the road to refining this process!
I have been looking on how to do this for quite some time. Utterly fantastic. Great job.
Great video as usual, have you tried silicone based oils? in my experience , after been burned by a laser, it turns into very hydrophilic silica nanoparticules that sticks very well to the surface.
aetius31 would that actually help? I guess a cleaning process is already done so it wouldn’t hurt, but the current oil seems to work fine.
@@zachburke8906 The point is that it could make a 3d template for the copper so the layer could be thicker and/or mechanically stronger.
aetius31 so it’s a question of if it gets removed in the cleaning process?
How do the fancy pulsed-laser-activated catalyst parts get around the flux problem? Is it just a result of the catalyst being embedded in the plastic rather than coating it?
You're such a brilliant person and I'm glad you share all of this really interesting stuff with us. Keep it up man!
Man, you always have these interesting vids... Love your tenacity for researching topics like this. I hope you continue with this line of research, a diy person being able to make 3d printed electronics would be such a game changer...
You could use Argon instad of the Air for the bubbler. Nice Vid.
Nitrogen would be cheaper.
@hypo krites - How would he use Depends for a bubbler?
Argon or nitrogen defeats the point.
He put the bubble in there in order to introduce oxygen. little point in having an argon or nitrogen bubbler.
It was to cause disturbance and knock off bubbles, not to have oxygen in there afaik.
@@whatevernamegoeshere3644 No, he said the oxygen was to stabilize the solution. The stirring action was supposed to be an added benefit by turned out to be a negative.
This is great news especially in a post Radio Shack world.
The sheer will that you have amazes me!
Your videos are so inspiring. Thank you for making them. They are wonderful gifts to receive.
I wonder if having the copper traces a little deep would let you create something like a SchmartBoard, or at least help you align certain SMD ICs
Karl Koscher I was wondering that too, many ICs are elevated a few mil off the board anyway, so having slightly low ICs could help.
Maybe even a dual copper coating process could be used to make the regular traces and some select SMD parts still properly elevated, and the pitch sensitive parts lowered.
Robert Murry Smith (and probably others too) make a conductive ink that is graphite (or was it graphene?) based, and use that to provide the conductive surface to electroplate things. You'll see (for example) tree leaves completely electroplated in copper using this method.
It's ability to stick to things (ie: plastic) would simply depend on what binder is in the ink. Couldn't you make electroplated copper circuits this way?
edit: now that i think about it, what if you just drew onto the object with an ordinary leaded (ie: graphite) pencil - and then tried to electroplate that? It might not stick well.
Thats not really a plating/electroplating process. You're basically gluing the copper to the substrate by doing it that way.
I've been meaning to try this out for a long time now. I suspect that for flat shapes like PCB traces, the adhesion wouldn't be good enough to make a sturdy trace, but if you're 3D printing the substrate, it's possible that you could raise or lower traces in the substrate so that the face and [possibly non-vertical] sides (and any surface texture left on these by your production process, such as FDM layer lines) are all coated with conductive ink, increasing its ability to stick and, with the right geometry, making it impossible to pull traces straight off without bending or breaking the copper itself. No idea whether this would be enough to keep traces from coming off, though.
It's possible you could even print plates with raised, slightly outward-canted traces and 'stamp' them face-down into a bath of ink so that the traces but not the top surface of the plate get covered in conductive ink, which could then be electroplated and would hold on to the plastic by virtue of its shape in addition to whatever strength the glue had.
Another amazing video. One of the best yet. Thank you Ben!
I was wondering what you'd been up to. Not disappointed, this is awesome stuff.
You mentioned how PLA doesn't work, but what about ABS or PETG? I could probably look this up, but I want to know if yo tried.
Have you given ABS or PETG a try yet?
I did not expect to find you here lmao
You shouldn't try ABS. Lasering it produces hydrogen cyanide gas. PETG is fine.
@@TheOfficialCzex even PLA emissions should be vented. No one should be anywhere near laser cut or 3D printed polymers and proper air collection/removal should be in place.
@@TheOfficialCzex If you are printing ABS, hopefully you already have proper ventilation.
Hey, Ben just out of curiosity have you ever seen the channel ROBRENZ ? Amazing machinist and some electronics content too. Seems like a channel that you may enjoy, I certainly do. Thanks for all the awesome original content you create.
Your knowledge is legit inspiring. You've helped my interest in science come back into full effect. Too much focusing on Cisco & virtualization stuff for me lately.
Wow, it's amazing how you keep pushing on to solve the issues you run into. It's truly inspiring :)
Stupid question, wouldn't it be easier to sputter some copper on a piece of plastic and then put the whole thing in a copper sulfate bath to grow your trace according to your spec ?
I think the end goal here to develop _an accessible method for making (3d printed) plastic parts with integral circuit traces_ rather than _a plastic part with integral circuit traces_ . Assuming that that's the case, then sputtering's probably off the table; AFAIK, 3D printers and laser cutters are fairly common in hackerspaces (and other similarly themed places), but I suspect that sputtering setups aren't.
Probably not. Sputtering onto plastic is pretty difficult, the adhesion is really bad (depending on plastic). Really you want to sputter Ti first, then place a layer of Cu on, either by sputtering or electroplating.
Ok that's pretty darn nifty
I've used Wet & Forget to clean the render on my house, it was brilliant. Never dreamed it would have electronics benefits! Cool video!
Good work on figuring this out, Ben. Very interesting stuff to say the least!
i wonder if you could get copper traces on a business card...
I've seen cards with tracing to do some gimmicky thing. Not sure what real use it would have.
You could always order a thin PCB with the right size and use that. Of course that would somewhat limit your aesthetic choices.
the whole point would be to do something crazy like make a pcb out of a regular business card
A guy here on TH-cam that goes by the name Mitxela made Stylophone business cards. He had the PCBs printed by a commercial service though.
@@SuperAWaC might be doable using conductive silver ink. Soldering it would likely be destructive though. Even if you managed to not put it on fire, for example by soldering under an inert atmosphere, would still likely char the paper. This could make the final product unsuitable even as a circuit board because of conductive carbon formation. You might still be able to pull it off with some plastic material having the outward appearance of approximately glossy paper.
How does this compare to chemical vapor deposition?
CVD could melt the plastic, I'd assume
Physical vapor deposition works really well on plastics.
PVD? He's talking about CVD.
You, sir, are a trailblazer and a True Scientist. Thank you for all your fastidious R&D and, most importantly, for sharing it all with the global community. I will now be using your technique at the beginning of next year, rather than having to conduct my own extensive (but undoubtedly far sloppier) experiments on the plated copper dissolution method.
this would be amazing process book! wild new set of processes to study, thank you for the spark!
How would you dispose of the solution?
Freeze it and serve it to your surviving Tide-Pod eating friends.
The copper sulfate is sold to pour down drains, tartrates are found in food, the lye, sodium carbonate, and the others are all sold over the counter and are generally drain disposal safe. Even the tin compounds are not toxic. Worst case you mix them all together and the copper drops out as a dust.
pixelpatter01 I more mean the formaldehyde; it’s pretty nasty stuff
I can’t imagine putting it down the drain will do the environment any favours
Even in low concentration
Copper ions are considered a poison for water organisms. So I was always told, not to dispose of the waste from PCB etching (spent etchant) down the drain. Tin compounds are also dangerous to aquatic liveforms, so it is used in the paint to protect ships hulls (anti-fouling paint).
Formaldehyde was used in chemical toilets, but AFAIK not any more as it is a potent antimicrobial and interferes with biological sewage treatment facilities.
All together better do not put it down the drain. Treat it like PCB making waste which also occurs often in hackerspaces.
There is a big difference between putting a gallon or two of copper solutions down a drain and dumping some sore of real hazardous chemical like mercury, petroleum solvents or insecticides which persist in the environment. If you were running a manufacturing plant you should have a plan to deal with the waste, but as a home experimenter dumping a product (copper sulfate) made to be dumped into a drain to kill roots isn't like the end of the world. Every recreational vehicle recommends putting a formaldehyde product in the sewage holding tanks, and when the tank gets emptied it goes right to a sewage treatment plant. The trace amounts of non organic tin in a home process are not going to poison anybody unless they drink the solution.
"If you've heard of detergent, or soap even..."
Not a lot of faith in your audience, have we?
SIMPLY AMAZING COMBINATION OF KNOWLEDGE!
That whole process was amazing to watch.
Don't completely follow the laser process. Can't you better just completely copper coat the part and burn away the copper parts you don't need instead?
that would take a huge amount of power. and if you burn through copper, at that power you would plunge through platic like nothing
burning copper? like, boiling/vaporizing copper?
I don't think thats something you can do with a laser like that... The boiling point of copper is something like 2500°C.
Also, the plastic would melt in no time.
This comes down to two problems really.
The first is the stability of the traces. If you have the traces raised up above the surface of the substrate, they'll have worse adherence to the plastic and more prone to breaking. The thicker the traces you want the worse this problem becomes, as you have to make the part coating even thicker, with more material to laser through. Having the traces sunk down in a channel means you can basically make them as thick as you want my just cutting a deeper channel. Mounting small parts to the traces also becomes much more of a pain in the ass if traces are raised significantly.
Two is the power of the laser. Vaporizing metal as opposed to plastic requires several times the power of cutting through plastic. When cutting you would also need to be VERY careful otherwise you could easily drill a hole straight through the plastic if it was set to the required power for copper. Its also going to inevitably vaporize a significant amount of plastic underneath the copper anyways, which compounds the first issue.
Oh and not to mention the time/power usage difference. Cutting the entire part in copper as opposed to the traces in plastic would take a huge amount more power and time to acheive
There is a prototype PCB machine which does burn the copper off the epoxy. But it needs an expensive UV pulse laser. Something like a frequency trippled Nd:YAG. I think, they said, it would not work with green.
But even that prototype PCB machine won't be able to burn away copper from a SLA plastic. That probably only works on proper FR4 pcb. 3d printed SLA would simply melt.
(Wow, first three comments are utterly meaningless unless you're crazy insane...) seems like they're gone now, cept for one....
Anyway... what's the capacitance between the power and groundplanes? as well as the capacitance between two differential traces?
Great video ! as usual.
It will vary depending on the substrate.
Oh man, that is exactly what I was looking for a while. Thank you very much for sharing this
To Applied Science: Thank you for such a well detailed and valuable presentation!
Great work. Thank you for sharing your projects!
Ben you are awesome ! Pushing the DIY frontier :-)
Very interesting and worthwhile research. I am keen to see more on this process.
Fascinating. Really impressive combination of tenacity and skill.
Enjoy watching your channel, you explain everything simply but the science included
Thank you for this. It has opened a whole new world of ideas for me.
Love these kind of videos! Please keep them coming (and more often if possible).
thank you for doing all this work and research and showing us all how!
Reminds me of why I didn't do so good in Chemistry. Thanks for the very clear explanation. I'm amazed.
This is basicly a very well tunned tolenst test. Very clever solution.
I had no idea how involved making a PCB would be. I mean they're so cheap now that I guess I assumed they were easy to make. I'm sure economies of scale in addition to refinement help here, but still, what a process! Also it's impressive that you were able to figure all this out and get something that worked at the end.
:-o Unbelievable! Thank you! I'm awestruck by this fantastic piece of research.