Originally posted by googlefudge
If 3d printing becomes mainstream so that people could print their own 2d printers...
or at least the ink cartridges for them... then people will naturally design and print
ink cartridges that maximise ink capacity and are easy to refill.

It will be a long time before 3D printers can print the range of materials required at the resolution required for inkjet print heads.

What my mum uses is a set of ink tanks with tubes going to the ink cartridges, then you just top up the ink tanks. This works very well, but is not perfect. It also requires replacing the little chips on the cartridge that the printer manufacturers put there to try and stop you from doing this sort of thing.

Originally posted by twhitehead
It will be a long time before 3D printers can print the range of materials required at the resolution required for inkjet print heads.

What my mum uses is a set of ink tanks with tubes going to the ink cartridges, then you just top up the ink tanks. This works very well, but is not perfect. It also requires replacing the little chips on the cartridge that the printer manufacturers put there to try and stop you from doing this sort of thing.

Well I'm not sure what you men by 'a long time', I'm thinking something like 10~15 yrs.

But you could print the cartridge and use the print head off of an old cartridge now.

Originally posted by googlefudge
If 3d printing becomes mainstream so that people could print their own 2d printers...
or at least the ink cartridges for them... then people will naturally design and print
ink cartridges that maximise ink capacity and are easy to refill.

Care to predict the date this will happen?

Originally posted by googlefudge
Well I'm not sure what you men by 'a long time', I'm thinking something like 10~15 yrs.

I don't think 3D printers will ever be able to print ICs. Printer cartridges do not require them, but printers themselves do.
However, I do see the possibility of having general purpose programmable ICs that 3D printers could have a stock of, then they could have a variety of capacitors, resistors etc and print the circuit boards. But it will be a lot longer than 10~15 years before we see anything like that, and even then, there may be no real benefits to be had. Some things are just more efficiently produced in factories.

Originally posted by Paul Dirac II
Care to predict the date this will happen?

Nope. Predicting the date new technologies will emerge is a mugs game 😉

Originally posted by twhitehead
I don't think 3D printers will ever be able to print ICs. Printer cartridges do not require them, but printers themselves do.
However, I do see the possibility of having general purpose programmable ICs that 3D printers could have a stock of, then they could have a variety of capacitors, resistors etc and print the circuit boards. But it will be a lot lo ...[text shortened]... may be no real benefits to be had. Some things are just more efficiently produced in factories.

Well given that we already have 3d printers that can print with multi-materials
including plastics and metals... I really don't see any barrier to printing IC's.

Whether printing IC's is ever going to be better than other techniques I don't know.
But that's not really the point.

If you can print out a set of refillable ink cartridges which hold 5~10 times as much
ink as the regular ones do, and which will last 5+ yrs. Then it doesn't really matter
in the cartridges themselves cost several times as much to make as regular ones,
and it doesn't matter if it takes longer to print the cartridges off than it would take
for a factory to make them. The long term benefits outweigh the costs.

As for how long till we can print IC's... I really do think we will see printed IC's in the
next decade or so... Not saying how BIG those IC's will be... But I'm pretty sure we'll
see them.

Originally posted by googlefudge
Well given that we already have 3d printers that can print with multi-materials
including plastics and metals... I really don't see any barrier to printing IC's.

Well I guess one could argue that ICs are already produced on 3D printers, but the kind of small scale printer that you or I could afford? Of course there are barriers.

If you can print out a set of refillable ink cartridges which hold 5~10 times as much
ink as the regular ones do, and which will last 5+ yrs.
The better technology is to uses tubes from large tanks to the cartridges, and that is already available, without needing to print it yourself. But what we don't yet have is trouble free print heads that will last 5+ years. That is not waiting for manufacturing technology but design ideas - which 3D printing does not solve. Its like the light bulb. It is in manufacturers interest to only design things that wear out. It takes government policy to change this.

Originally posted by twhitehead
Well I guess one could argue that ICs are already produced on 3D printers, but the kind of small scale printer that you or I could afford? Of course there are barriers.

[b]If you can print out a set of refillable ink cartridges which hold 5~10 times as much
ink as the regular ones do, and which will last 5+ yrs.
The better technology is to uses ...[text shortened]... cturers interest to only design things that wear out. It takes government policy to change this.[/b]

I could have been clearer. I meant that I see no insurmountable technical, engineering
or economic hurdles [barriers]. You seemed to me to be saying it's not possible/will never
happen. To which my response is to say that I see no barrier that can or will prevent it
happening. I didn't mean that there are no barriers at all... Otherwise we would already
have done it.

But what we don't yet have is trouble free print heads that will last 5+ years. That is not waiting for manufacturing technology but design ideas - which 3D printing does not solve. Its like the light bulb. It is in manufacturers interest to only design things that wear out. It takes government policy to change this.

Well I would love for our governments to properly regulate in the interests of consumers and
the environment as they are supposed to. I'm just not particularly optimistic that they will.
Which is why I was saying that 3D printing might solve the problem.
The reason being that once an open source design co-operative comes up with a long lasting
design that 3D printers can print, then we can bypass the traditional manufacturers and
design and build long lasting components ourselves. Particularly if 3d printing a component has
higher build costs than mass manufacturing, it would be a requirement that the printed product
last longer to make it more economical overall.

Originally posted by twhitehead
I don't think 3D printers will ever be able to print ICs. Printer cartridges do not require them, but printers themselves do.
However, I do see the possibility of having general purpose programmable ICs that 3D printers could have a stock of, then they could have a variety of capacitors, resistors etc and print the circuit boards. But it will be a lot lo ...[text shortened]... may be no real benefits to be had. Some things are just more efficiently produced in factories.

I think that it's more a matter of demand than of technological difficulty. Most people who want integrated circuits (I assume this is what you mean by I.C.) either just want one, or want a production line. In the former case it tends to be a one off - the landlord at the Pembury Tavern in Hackney designed and built (he was originally a computer scientist working at the hardware end) a circuit to control the temperature of the brewing vats at the brewery they get most of their beer from (apparently once it is fermented it is necessary to get the temperature of the beer down to prevent secondary fermentation processes), he needed a handful of printed circuits but the smallest order was for 100 of them from China. His business is running pubs, so he doesn't want to mass produce them. For that project a 3D printer could have been quite useful.

Originally posted by DeepThought
For that project a 3D printer could have been quite useful.

The reason why the smallest order is 100, is because of the specialized machines required to make them. If it can ever be done by 3D printing, the first to own such printers will be the big manufacturers. As I said, it is possible that what they already use could be classified as 3D printers.
But as far as I am aware, most ICs are made on silicon wafers that must be kept clean, and to be economically viable, you must print many circuits on each wafer.

I suspect that the circuit in your example was not, in fact, an IC, but a PCB. I also suspect he could easily get the job done with general purpose programmable boards, which is most likely what future 3D printers would use. They would have a stock of boards or ICs that they can insert into physical structures and they would print some of the interconnecting wiring - or it could be added by the owner later on.

I think it will always be economically cheaper to mass produce general purpose pre-made boards than to make individually customized boards - the only reason for custom boards is performance, which drives up the cost anyway and argues for mass production.

Originally posted by twhitehead
The reason why the smallest order is 100, is because of the specialized machines required to make them. If it can ever be done by 3D printing, the first to own such printers will be the big manufacturers. As I said, it is possible that what they already use could be classified as 3D printers.
But as far as I am aware, most ICs are made on silicon wafers ...[text shortened]... or custom boards is performance, which drives up the cost anyway and argues for mass production.

I suspect that the circuit in your example was not, in fact, an IC, but a PCB.

Yes that is what I meant. I'd ruled out the discussion being about processors in my mind as you couldn't possibly make one on a 3D printer, the clean-room requirements are too extreme, and assumed you meant a PCB, but got confused about terminology.

He used an ARM micro-controller. He knows what he's doing, and so I'd guess that either there was a good reason that he couldn't use a general purpose board or it was just more fun to design it himself.

I believe there are table top machines to make integrated circuits (of low integration density) but for something like a Intel Core processor, or one of the ARM chips you need a factory, they have to layer it and insert pegs that are microscopic. Way too hard to do at home. There are general purpose programmable processors, called Field Programmable Gate Arrays for those that want to create their own processors.