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SoliForum - 3D Printing Community → General Discussion → i just ordered some conductive filament, what should i make?
what cool stuff do you guys think we can make with this? my first thought was with a dual extruder you could make a capacitor. but you should be able to make switches and buttons also.
Can you print a set of strips and see what the true conductivity is per area and length printed? After you print a jack o lantern with light up eyes of course.
I heard the resistance is something around 10k per cm. If its actually much less, go for a 3d circuit trace! Led array?
Uhhhhhh, something that you can later electro-plate. definitely.
I think a real application of conductive filament is to design enclosures that will block EMI. The resistance per cm is far too high to implement most circuit designs. However, this technology should not be minimized. As an engineer that has had to specify enclosures that must pass emissions tests, I can tell you that metal as been the only option to meet most radiated standards testing.
Jon,
Do you think the filament could block rfid? Thats a hot topic right now.
hmm, interesting test, I would have thought the effectiveness of EMI suppression relys on the conductivity creating eddy currents and cancelling out the EM wave.
Thinking about it, there is a reason copper and aluminium are more effective than steel.
So I would think the EM suppression would be fairly poor.
about all I can think of for conductive is to print touch buttons that use resistive or capacitive feedback, in fact I have an application for such a thing, I am not sure how to connect to it tho 
I guess a printed plastic area directly in contact with a pcb may work to bring a touch switch to the surface.
The resistance is too high to drive anything with it, including leds or buzzers .. so i can only think it would be useful as an input voltage only and that using a fairly high impedance input.
As far as I know, Alu and Cu are better because the key is to GROUND the box, so as to offer the shortest path* to ground for any noise and have that path not go through your important circuitry.
*The shortest path is a bit tricky. Normally you would assume it's the lowest resistance path. But it's the lowest impedance path. When i was making ground planes on my PCB I learned if the bottom plane does not have some vias getting me back to my grounds on the top layer, then the plane is largely useless because the lowest impedance path for a high frequency signal might still circumvent that large ground plane I made.
Anyway, as you can see I don't know much about this. But I don't know EM is the most important thing that this conductive printing can do. I have in the past sandwiched tinfoil between two layers of non conductive fabrics and grounded that tinfoil. It was highly effective.
I think printed large scale circuitry would be a fun way to teach very basic circuits to kids. Something similar to http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:21975.
Speaking of large scale electronics...
You could always print resistors and potentiometers
Especially if the resistance gets as high as coleke indicated, I would think conductive plastic would be pretty useless as either a shielding or grounding media..
Remember, as a process, shielding (EM) is different from grounding (safety).
Copper/aluminum are great for grounding, but IIRC they are useless against 60hz EMI shielding because they are non-ferromagnetic. I think they might actually work OK for higher frequency EMI, a la faraday cage effect etc. I'm sure Jon knows, maybe he can correct me because it's been a while since I looked up this stuff If memory is correct, then conductive plastic (assuming the dopant is non-ferrous) would still be bunk for mains EMI shielding, even if it had low resistance.
I should think that conductive plastic is perfect for touch detection- eg. a box that knows when it's been picked up.
Maybe someone will come up with a crazy vertical 3d version of the Operation board game!
Just got mine, gonna try to print with it tomorrow...
Rondavouz said: "gonna try to print with it tomorrow..."
How did the print go and what did you print?
You should see if you can electroplate it.
I just found some in 1.75 mm Conductive filament, I ordered. How did these tests go?
http://www.makergeeks.com/coabs3dfi10.html
I am interested as well... I tried printing some things using this and had lots of problems... the filament was much stiffer than normal ABS and it kept wanting to unwind off the spool. I had lot of problems with the filament breaking mid print and also clogging my extruder... After 4 failed attempts I wound up throwing the spool in the trash in frustration.
of course, that could have been the brand I used...
I wanted to use this to print PCB test fixtures for work. I was more interested in the anti-static properties more than the conductive properties. normal ABS is not great for ESD sensitive parts.
let me know how it goes for you...
I wanted to use this to print PCB test fixtures for work. I was more interested in the anti-static properties more than the conductive properties. normal ABS is not great for ESD sensitive parts.
I was kind of thinking that was the point. In an industrial setting one time use or low volume anti-static fixtures are often needed. This stuff could work great for anything that doesn't need to go through an oven.
Yea... Too bad I never successfully finished a print with it. 
SoliForum - 3D Printing Community → General Discussion → i just ordered some conductive filament, what should i make?
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