Conductive Silver Ink for PCB's

[Ghost_Bass]

Anyone tried this? Does it work properly? As a hobbyist DIYer i find it a very interesting idea for making your own PCB's without having to have them made or have to buy all the gear to make them at home in the "traditional" way. Would one of these pens go a long way?

[url="http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/PCB-CIRCUIT-BOARD-CONDUCTIVE-INK-PEN-STANDARD-TIP-NEW-/320942982900?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item4ab9b146f4"]http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/PCB-CIRCUIT-BOARD-CONDUCTIVE-INK-PEN-STANDARD-TIP-NEW-/320942982900?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item4ab9b146f4[/url]

[rmorris]

I've used this type of 'pen' in electronics development. Idea sounds great but a couple of things to bear in mind :-

1. As I recall youi have to press down on the nib to get the stuff to flow - think like a 'glitter pen' - and that means you can't produce the narrow traces you might typically want on a pcb layout.

2. The stuff has a short 'shelf life ' (days / 1 week ???) after opening. Seems to be the case no matter how diligent you are in replacing the cap. After this it seems to become sort of 'yukky' and unreliable.

To put this in context I used to work at a fader manufacturer where they used similar solution to attach wires to the track substrate where low resistance was paramount. But they would make the stuff themselves before start of shift and use it all within 2 hours or so otherwise the performance deteriorated. Same problem with the stuff you get from somewhere like Maplins to repair rear screen heaters on cars - the factory stuff was popular for that :-)

It probably has a place in a busy repair shop esp for edge connectors etc but I've never really found a use for pcb prototyping etc and I doubt you'd get money's worth of use from it as it's not cheap.