You can draw circuits! But does it make sense? Conductive Ink Pen Experiment!
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In this video I will be having a closer look at conductive ink pens and find out whether they are useful when it comes to creating electronics circuits. I will test 2 different types by doing an experiment targeting the resistance, current capability and frequency response. At the end we will know for certain in which way such conductive ink pens can be used.
Thanks to JLCPCB for sponsoring this video.
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Music:
2011 Lookalike by Bartlebeats
0:00 Conductive Ink Pens?
1:39 Intro
2:25 Initial test
3:38 Focus on the silver pen
4:30 Resistance test
5:42 Max Current test
6:54 Frequency test
8:42 Verdict - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
fixing broken traces with conductive pen seems like a brilliant idea!
Many years ago automotive parts stores used to sell pens like this to repair broken traces for GM dashboard instrument clusters
I have used conductive paint to fix heated rear windows on vehicles before.
Maybe only at low current circuits traces, how could we see.
It is! And it's a savior for people like me, who have shaky hands and burn traces! It's been used in several solid state +500watt bass amplifiers at my job
Nope, just scrape the mask and use solder
You could say: "you can draw as much as you want, but not when it comes to current." 😆
please uninstall your internet connection
Oh boy😅
@@chrisakaschulbus4903 He actually tried nine more puns to impress internet people. No pun in ten did.
@@rexsceleratorum1632 "No pun in ten did."
why are you like this? why?!
Good one bro
I fix keyboard tracks using silver conducive paint, works perfectly.
Good to know
@@greatscottlab Also you can repair conductive rubber such remote control or wireless phones
That what I was thinking a good use of this would be. PCB trace repair.
Graphite is also conductive and pencils are much cheaper.
You must be using a good-quality one because the three syringes of wire-glue that I've gotten from Chinese sellers on eBay have been useless and don't work (they don't conduct at all whether fresh or dry), so I've got a pile of keyboard membranes waiting to be fixed. 😕 (The first one I got several years ago did work briefly but stopped after a while, the others never worked.) I got some copper tape to fix them instead. 😉
Never thought I'd see someone solder on paper. It's something different.
Tried it once, only recommended for low current applications.
Where did you buy it?
Sooo.. works great as a fuse? :-)
@@sayantanmaiti2513 AliExpress
Great for fixing bad traces. Been using it for years.
And i think about the performance of resistence/cm after a long time. Maybe the resistence/cm is going to be higher and higher.
This is not a new technology back in the 1980’s “squeeze pens” like this were sold to repair broken traces on GM dashboard instrument clusters
Yes made of silver
This is actually something i have never seen that looks quite interesting, great video :D
Thanks! 😄
@@greatscottlab I think I will buy this thing
What about your drone🇳🇵🇳🇵??that you had tell to build
@Jaydeep Mondal probably the paper will be în fire .
I've used a pencil to draw circuits. The graphite is conductive. On the original run of Athlon CPUs you could enable overclocking by drawing a line with a pencil on the top of the chip to connect two contacts. I've used a pencil to draw to connect a broken trace on circuit boards.
Interesting!
I first saw the concept of conducive ink in around 2016-2017. It has come a long way since then.
I tried the same with a pencil, they are very good for making resistors
Graphite pencil?
@@greatscottlab I also tried
By creating a dark thick line with pencil
And it was conducting too
@@greatscottlab probably
@@greatscottlab aren't all pencils graphite
@@greatscottlab Yes !
That’s super cool! The conductive paint from a previous video seemed more permanent and professional, but this is probably better for quick demos
teacher: pass your prototype papers, And make sure its working at least... also get ready to explain it later
Plot twist: the teacher is GreatScott
I like ;-)
Lol! An excuse for teachers. Students will be like "what do you mean?"
I've been curious about this for a while too. Thanks for the excellent video!
That is on another level, never even considered it.
how was this commented like 3 days before the video was released
Pateron supporter, videos are released a few days early
I used one of these pens to fix the traces on an old IBM keyboard a couple years ago! The repaired traces / pads still work.
I remember seeing something about this many years ago. I can't wait to see your take on it.
Thank you so much for sharing this valuable information through this amazing video.
You are so welcome!
if you already like this look at Robert Murray's channel, he is a inventor and sells conductive ink. He shares a lot of his knowledge and perform lots of cool experiments with battery tech and his ink. th-cam.com/video/cHqrcsGys-0/w-d-xo.html
@@Rem_NL Thanks for sharing this valuable TH-cam channel.
@@DrJALAGHARI that is actually his 2nd channel i think more aimed towards his ink, his main channel has way more videos (increasing in audio visual quality over the years ) th-cam.com/users/RobertMurraySmithfeatured
There is also 5mm conductive sticky tape on amazon as an alternative to conductive ink. Might be interesting to try it on a canvas and with through hole parts.
Question is, why did you use it on a soaking surface like paper you've used. Wood or glass might have been much better option.
Or photo paper. But yeah glass sounds nice.
Been waiting for, thanks for making a video about it!
Thanks @greatscott, i know the video is going to be awesome
Great video. Looking forward for your SMPS project!
These came on to the market some time around the late 1970s and early 1980s. Their specified intention was for circuit board repair. This was at a time before surface mount circuits. The smallest trace found on most PC boards was 0.1 inch which is the pad width for through-mount ICs. The only method of creating a PC board at that time, whether mass produced or hobbyist was a photographic process, and using caustic etching solutions to process the copper. Making a PCB as a hobbyist was possible, but more involved than many wanted to go into. The first PCB pens were actually black ink pens used to draw opaque traces on the transparent acetate to hand draw the photo positive for that photo process, and it actually worked pretty well for that purpose. The carbon based black ink in these pens was discovered to be conductive, and so the birth of this whole idea of just drawing the PCB directly.
They are useful for repairing tracks in rear heated screens on cars, so many people have damaged a track or two where something has been in the boot and scratched though to the glass.
Pretty interesting indeed! Seems to be pretty useful! 😃
Thanks a lot, dude!!!
Stay safe and creative there! 🖖😊
Great vid from Great Scott, Thanks as always!
Always a good day when there's a new Great Scott video!
Thanks mate :-)
Circuit Scribe immediately came to mind. I think they did a kickstarter years ago, which I backed. I never did any tests on the pen they sent, but I recall it being a lot less bulky than the pens you got
Bruh😂 just 2 hours ago visited your channel,to see if you have posted any ney video since last week, and I was upset not finding one, and now you posted this masterpiece 🙏❤️ from India
Was wating for this all day.
I hope you liked the video ;-)
I wanted to do this myself
dilimi biliyormusunuz bilmiyorum ama videolarınızı çok severek izliyorum keşke türkiyedede böyle kanallar olsa , en sevdiğim replik lets get starded
I translated this part from google translate
I don't know if you know my language but I love watching your videos I wish there were channels like this in turkey, my favorite line lets get starded
Goldsmith Master Jeweler here: silver pen is what was introduced in the Jewelry Business, they had a gold on also but didn't work. but like you said, for beginner's to learn, they kids at school i approve. i Like, OLE'!
Good Vedio and good idea, i think that it will be used for creat the damege path of PCB (when repairing the TV circuit bord and etc.).
Used one years ago to modify an ATI Radeon 9500 pro 128 MB graphics card by unlocking more pipelines and bios flash it to a higher model card. Worked perfect!
I appreciate that it is more of a toy. But it does get me thinking about DIY flexible PCBs.
This remembers me to smart textiles. It blew my mind when I realized how simple it is to sew a circuit to a textile. But I never figured out a real aplication. I guess it will be similar with such pens.
I wish I had this pen when I made my capacitive light switch. Great video mate. Cheers
Thanks mate👍
Thanks Great Scott. Loved this video
Glad to hear it!
Nice video Great Scott🔥 now I know about a new soldering pen which can be used for electronic arts
Glad to help
Quite thrilling work.
I would love to see this pen in a CNC pen plotter.
Circuit Scribe has videos of their pen in a pen plotter to print circuits. Connecting components is still tricky but using extra ink and hot glue helps keep things together.
@@Zanoab Thanks.
hey i really enjoy watching ur videos.... I LOVE UR VIDEOS.... KEEP IT UP....
Thanks, will do!
Sometimes I've made double sided DIY PCBs using photo-resist and copper clad etc. This works nicely, but one issue is that the top/bottom vias are not connected after drilling them out. To solve this, I typically insert thin wires in all the vias, and solder on both sides ... but this can be a bit tedious. I wonder if this 'magic' conductive ink might be used to quickly plate the vias, by injecting it into the holes. If so, this ink might possibly be useful for 'actual' projects.
Something people fail to mention is with the silver inks you should actually heat them for a while to fully cure. The resistance will drop even lower is you do that
good point. I am reading that a full 24 hours is required but applying hair dryer for 5 minutes can do the same job as 24 hour air dry
I feel like the silver pen would be a decent thermal paste alternative while using small heatsinks.
Yes, It seems to be worthy of a video.
What is the benefit compared to thermal paste?
@@michaegi4717 nothing, actually it is worse. there is reason thermal paste DOES NOT dry up and non-conducting,
when you change thermal paste with conductive paint and it dry quickly you lose the properties for thermal conducting since the part should be in touch with the paste (dry = shrinking) and heatsink.
the thermal paste works with filling the gap between heatsink and the parts, therefore the filling material should not dry. that's why when you see the thermal paste is dry you should change it with the new one.
and the reason for thermal paste is not conductive is for safety reason in eletrical sense.
No, no it wouldn't.
@@michaegi4717 IMO, there would be no real benefit, but this stuff would dry out, perhaps cracking between heat sink and device, which would alter the transfer of heat in a bad way.
I wonder if in the future as material science advances, we'll see conductive ink with as good conductivity as like raw copper or something, it'll be so cool and useful
Only time will tell ;-)
I think we can print (badly) with copper already (and it's super difficult) but it's not your standard FDM printing on account of needing ~1200 degrees to melt the copper. I think it uses powered copper and laser instead.
I like you am super excited to see a day when we can print copper (hobbyist style) esp if you can print it inside a standard print.
Since conductive 3D printer "ink" is already available, you can now quite literally "print" printed circuits using a 3D printer. I'm not aware of any standard inkjet printer ink that is conductive to this degree, though the problem with standard inkjets is that you can't "feed" a rigid surface through them, but you CAN 3D print on a thin board, for example.
if I was a kid seeing this on my physics class back in school I would be blown away!
I was a bit late though the video is nice, j appreciate the amount of work you put into these videos, and you make my day every week 🙂👍
Glad you like them!
I use conductive paints and inks to replace acid destroyed circuit traces on my old Soviet quartz watches. Its actually pretty good and instead of all that soldering minute bits of wire onto a circuit board I just paint over the break and jobs a good 'un. I started using originally silver paint used for repairing the fine traces in rear screen demisters for your car, using that to create overclocking and unlocking bridges on AMD and Intel CPU's and was always useful for repairing a circuit board where a capacitor had let go or a coin battery had sprayed its love inside the device.
I prefer the oldschool readymade hole or holestrip pattern PCB's for a quick prototype build.
They are conveniently laid out with a 0.1" hole pattern fits leaded type IC's and all types leaded components.
You can even use these PCB's as an overlay for cardboards and then with a nail or needle punch your hole pattern on to the cardboard.
That makes for a very neat birds nest on the initial layout.
You can always order from JLC pcb maker later on for your deluxe version project.
Now I can finally make my own paper resistors!
In a similar vein, check out 3M's Z tape 9703. Double sided adhesive tape that only conducts in the thickness direction. Contains micro balls of copper. You can just stick an IC onto its footprint and all the pins make contact without shorting to each other.
I recommend the cheapest silver conductive ink you can find that is more of a paste. squirt that onto a piece of plastic. now get a tiny tiny sewing needle and screw that into your exacto knife instead of the knife. now use the needle as a paintbrush to finely paint traces with amazing accuracy with this this paste into your substrate of choice. don't stop the trace shy of a component! set that component DOWN and trace up onto the leg of it with a little glob of paste to blue down the component and electrically attach it to your trace. no soldering needed AT ALL.
I don't see why you don't just use blue tape for your borders...
Cardboard is a complete mistake the edges do not get sealed...
Seems good for fixing membrane keypad traces and ribbon or flex connectors
IMO JLCPCB is one of the best services out there today
Brilliant! :-)
I tried using a conductive ink pen I got at Radio Shack in 2012 and it worked terribly. But it seems like you've got more success out of yours. It would be fun to see you make something much more complex using it.
i figured it would be for rapid prototyping, or making boge wires. depending upon how well the ink holds up repairing old conductive keyboards seems possible.
Awesome.....thank you for the valuable information 😀😀
Glad it was helpful!
I always think of those pens as a way to make small fixes on boards.
I prefer to use double side tape (the thin one) and very small wires ( as 24 or 28 gauge) and lay the wires and components on the tape.
And I use fine soldier to make the connection between wire and components.
You can even print out a "circuit" with a printer and lay everything directly on the tape.
Fast and reliable.
Thank you, this gave me an idea 💡😎🍻
Id definitely give it a try, i have some smd ics i always wanted to work with (power control ones) and we can't do it on a breadboard. I guess, u can *sorta* work with smaller smd ICs by using a real thin wire, which is long, and definitely conductive, the use the paste and connect em, this way you won't get blobs touching other lines
You can use Chinese pen to make traces and Silver pen for soldering point. It can be less resistive and useful.
You should test conductive thread too.
Honestly never heard of it😅 But I will surely have a look😉
@@greatscottlab Adafruit made some to be used with "wearables".
Those pens are quite useful. For example I managed to fix my membrane keyboard's conductive film traces using this pen since they were corroded and was not conducting.
I was starting to experiment with the conductive 3d printer filament. One low voltage application I wanted to try is see if I could make a potentiometer printed into the body of a robot arm. But found multiple issues with trying to get the slicer to print one line width wires.
Best youtube intro on the platform
great 👍 Scott !!!
I used the chinese one and used for contact moving pieces (like universal cell chargers, got one broken).
Great Scott! Can you test if you can use that ink pen to do temporary connections on perforated laminate board? I mean the prototype pcb full of holes in which you need to make connections yourself but you can solder to it easily.
If that silver would stick to that pcb enough to make connections, it might be a fairly sturdy and cheap alternative to breadboard in which you can solder the components, but make the connections with pen. It is always a pain to make connections on those boards, so maybe this pen will do the job.
Also, test this also with the cheaper black pen which uses graphite instead of silver. Because the copper lining of holes in that pcb willl enhance conductivity and you need only to make conduction between them, so maybe even black pen will work.
Fantastic idea
tbh, i think some of this, glass and epoxy would make stunning artwork
I designed a PCB for work, had it made and stuffed, but I forgot (So far in my analysis) exactly ONE pin, a reset pin on an IC that was left floating. No trace or connection anywhere, and in need it pulled high. BTW this particular IC is .5mm pitch SMD. Going to attempt to draw a connection (using tape to keep the ink from getting where it shouldn't) to pull it high, if it works I'll let everyone know, because I think this stuff has some serious practical application, especially in prototyping. It's less work than point to point wiring and more practical in circumstances like this.
I had used a conductive pen to jump pins on an old AMD Athalon 64 professors. Made it run faster speed. Worked well.
Mhh, interesting, I'm also tinkering with some athlon 64, can I ask you how you did it?
@@red1246sorry, I was wrong. I went and looked. It's on an Athalon XP chip. Bridge the L1 jumpers unlocks the multiplier. Guess I'm older than I thought.
@@normswan5806 wow, that's a really old beast, how much more performance do you get from it?
@@red1246 for the time it was worth it to me. Nothing compared to today. But, I also, "upgraded" by putting up a sign..."it's faster now". I felt better.
Great video, I think in 8:04 you had to print the design on paper and then after that trace it using the conductive ink pen.
Thanks so much 🙏🙏
Conductive pen can be use on fixing touch panel of microwave oven. Most of the time the ribbon in the touch panel is prone to worn out.
Soldering on the paper never even crossed my mind… 🤯
Something very similar is used for fixing the rear window defroster when the tracks have been damaged.
Actually DECADES AGO as a kid.... I discovered something with graphite pencils drawing lines on paper....... and you can work it out yourself but I knew FOR YEARS. You won't believe it until you discover it.
The problem with even simple LED circuits is that the resistance will cause the LEDs to light up at different intensities. Even the silver palladium and gold palladium inks from DuPont and others screen printed on hi alumina ceramic substrates had limitations. The polymer based inks are even more limiting.
It's supposedly used for acrylic or plastic sheet not on paper
Can we exepect future wearable devices/projects based on this ink?..looks like an easy alternative for flexible pcbs.
Looking forward for it!
Thanks for the video!
It can be used to create or repair a flexible circuit material such as keyboard traces (on flexi plastic surface)
Hi Scott!
I used to CNC mill copper off blank PCB plates to create custom circuits. It's as accurate as any other method, just slower
Years ago in a galaxy far away these pens were used to repair PCBs but today it's a crazy world
These pens are used for small temporary repairs (as you briefly show).
Also, you can not use a normal DMM for low resistance measurements like you do. You need to use 4-point (4-cable) measurements as parasitic resistances are high. You are in essence measuring your test equipment and not the paste. You then need to use a test structure to determine the intrinsic resistance of the conductive paste, otherwise you are measuring your geometry which is useless for most cases. One such simple structure is called Transmission Line Measurement (TLM). All you need is a straight line of the conductive paste, a ruler and 4-point measurement. You are almost doing it during the max current test. It would be nice if you could the show the correct way to measure as most new engineers seem to have problem with them.
If the conductive paste is silver then the line resistivity should be 3-10x that of bulk silver, i.e. very good. This kind of thermally curable silver paste are used for the pattern on the front of almost all (99.9%) solar cells. So 315x
is an indication of poor setup+measurement rather then poor material. In this case, I believe it is due to use of paper which is extremely porous material so the conductive film is broken up in islands. Use a solid PCB as a carrier for the silver paste to avoid this problem. Again, don't use DMM as I have yet to see any DMM measure below a few hundred milliohm even with a dead short on the leads.
Finally, the Chinese pen seem to be copper paste. These oxidize in air to that is most likely the reason why you can not solder on it. We had the same problem when we wanted to use Cu instead of Ag in our PV cell production to reduce price.
hello greatscott!
Great job
This would be useful for small projects with tight spaces. You can bend the paper.
Subscribed just because of the name. Also, I enjoy this kind of content.
U can also make a PCB 3D printer which prints with solder as it can melt at lower temps than usual metals
awesome video sir, really wanted to see how youd led up that "i" haha
What if you used the cheapest solder paste to make the traces? You could also try putting the circuit into an oven to see if you could melt it before the paper lights... you could use parchment paper although you may need to rough it up to get some adhesion.
Hi Scott... The video amazing..pls make a video of how u make that good circuits is prefboard. Do you use any software to do that
Nice video
Very useful
Glad you liked it
Use it like paint to cover small 3D printed objects for electroplating.