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A Crowd-funding campaign that Soylentils might be interested in keeping an eye on:
Next Dynamics has developed a proprietary print head it calls "DigiJet", which works like a 3D version of the tried-and-true inkjet printing.
The NexD1 features six of these print heads, each with 200 nozzles that spray fine droplets of material onto the build surface, which is then hardened by a UV laser before moving onto the next layer. With a diameter of five microns for each nozzle, the machine is able to print at a resolution of down to 10 microns, within its build area of 8 in3 (20 cm3).
[...] Standing as a compact cube of 16.5 in3 (42 cm3), the NexD1 can house six cartridges at once, printing with and mixing different materials as desired. At the moment, these include the options of tough, flexible, transparent, CMYK-colored and conductive (more on those in a minute) resins, as well as supporting structures that can prop up overhanging sections before being washed off with water. The team is working with other manufacturers to expand that materials library.
But the most interesting of those materials is the conductive resin. Galvanized and infused with nano-particles, Next Dynamics claims its resin can be printed into circuit boards that are just as conductive as standard PCBs, unlike other electronic-printing devices like the Voxel8. Designed for rapid prototyping, the NexD1 can even build three-dimensional circuit boards.
The initial unit sounds a bit pricey, but it would be fun to have something like this in the workshop.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday December 15 2016, @09:27PM
Unless the language changed when I wasn't looking, a circuit board itself is an electrical device, not an electronic one. "Electronics" typically references semiconductors - diodes, transistors, etc, not just conductive wire.
Though in their defense, it seems like "circuit board" is a gross understatement of it's potential, even if you can only fill that volume with conductors and insulators, you should still be able to construct an impressive range of resistors, capacitors, and inductors. With the inclusion of flexible freestanding subcomponents (probably requiring the addition of a temporary support material that can be "washed away" when done) you should even be able to print electro-mechanical relays, with which you can recreate much of what can be done using semiconductors, though without the speed or long-term durability.
So perhaps printable electronics is a reasonable claim after all.