Future Tech – inkjet printed circuits

AgIC are making a kickstarter project that lets you print an circuits using an inkjet printer. One big application that I can see is prototyping PCBs before you send them out for manufacturing, this could be a huge hit for makers and whoever’s into making and selling circuits in small volumes.

There are other rapid prototyping methods out but they’re either messy, expensive or both. They usually involve either acid  etching, CNC milling or paying a company lots of money to ship you the board overnight. In all cases it takes time to make the board, in the former cases you’d have to have a setup that takes a lot of space and makes a mess. The guys at AgIC have found a way to make circuits clean and easy.
In their video on kickstarter they showed how you can use their product and do away with breadboards altogether. You can design your circuit on your computer using your favourite board design software, print it out, attach components and you have a working board.

For some reason their campaign isn’t getting a lot of traction. I mean a button for a smartphone got 700k. These guys as of writing this post have only 70k.
I just hope that they’ll make it and the price point of the inkjet cartridges will be low enough for me to buy them =]

Video via MAKE