One of the workshops we ran was using conductive inks to create circuits on paper. We used the inks to draw connections between LEDs and batteries on the cover of cards.
Using conductive ink to paint circuits and connections is pretty magical however the ink can be very gooey and takes quite a long time to dry. Also it is not possible to test the connection until the ink is completely dry so although it is a fairly easy way to build interesting circuits within paper projects it does take a while to find out if your hard work has paid off.
Here is a small blue LED glowing on shiny green card
As it was a few days before Valentines day some people decided to experiment with the use of the ink and create Valentines cards. We also used pearlescent card to give a shimmering effect. I think if we had more time to experiment and design the cards we could have come up with some really interesting designs but instead we used this session to experiment with the ink to see how it works.
Met this new company at a UK maker fair, https://sites.google.com/site/thinkinkfactory123 they have produced a conductive ink which I compared to Bare and it is far superior, I actually recorded 2 ohms per square, on top of this it is made from a special Sri Lankan graphite which gives the ink a beautiful metallic silver colour, also I was disappointed with Bare as when I received the conductive pen it was like putty whereas the Think Ink product was like a flowing ink, thumbs up for the Think Ink crew : )
ReplyDeleteThanks for the tip, will check it out :)
ReplyDelete