├── .gitignore ├── LICENSE ├── README.md └── images ├── assembled-circuits.jpeg ├── bath-setup.jpeg ├── example-plating-pins.jpeg ├── plating-diagram.jpeg ├── prusaslicer.png └── small-simple-pcb-in-hand.jpeg /.gitignore: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | .DS_Store -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /LICENSE: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Apache License 2 | Version 2.0, January 2004 3 | http://www.apache.org/licenses/ 4 | 5 | TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR USE, REPRODUCTION, AND DISTRIBUTION 6 | 7 | 1. Definitions. 8 | 9 | "License" shall mean the terms and conditions for use, reproduction, 10 | and distribution as defined by Sections 1 through 9 of this document. 11 | 12 | "Licensor" shall mean the copyright owner or entity authorized by 13 | the copyright owner that is granting the License. 14 | 15 | "Legal Entity" shall mean the union of the acting entity and all 16 | other entities that control, are controlled by, or are under common 17 | control with that entity. For the purposes of this definition, 18 | "control" means (i) the power, direct or indirect, to cause the 19 | direction or management of such entity, whether by contract or 20 | otherwise, or (ii) ownership of fifty percent (50%) or more of the 21 | outstanding shares, or (iii) beneficial ownership of such entity. 22 | 23 | "You" (or "Your") shall mean an individual or Legal Entity 24 | exercising permissions granted by this License. 25 | 26 | "Source" form shall mean the preferred form for making modifications, 27 | including but not limited to software source code, documentation 28 | source, and configuration files. 29 | 30 | "Object" form shall mean any form resulting from mechanical 31 | transformation or translation of a Source form, including but 32 | not limited to compiled object code, generated documentation, 33 | and conversions to other media types. 34 | 35 | "Work" shall mean the work of authorship, whether in Source or 36 | Object form, made available under the License, as indicated by a 37 | copyright notice that is included in or attached to the work 38 | (an example is provided in the Appendix below). 39 | 40 | "Derivative Works" shall mean any work, whether in Source or Object 41 | form, that is based on (or derived from) the Work and for which the 42 | editorial revisions, annotations, elaborations, or other modifications 43 | represent, as a whole, an original work of authorship. For the purposes 44 | of this License, Derivative Works shall not include works that remain 45 | separable from, or merely link (or bind by name) to the interfaces of, 46 | the Work and Derivative Works thereof. 47 | 48 | "Contribution" shall mean any work of authorship, including 49 | the original version of the Work and any modifications or additions 50 | to that Work or Derivative Works thereof, that is intentionally 51 | submitted to Licensor for inclusion in the Work by the copyright owner 52 | or by an individual or Legal Entity authorized to submit on behalf of 53 | the copyright owner. For the purposes of this definition, "submitted" 54 | means any form of electronic, verbal, or written communication sent 55 | to the Licensor or its representatives, including but not limited to 56 | communication on electronic mailing lists, source code control systems, 57 | and issue tracking systems that are managed by, or on behalf of, the 58 | Licensor for the purpose of discussing and improving the Work, but 59 | excluding communication that is conspicuously marked or otherwise 60 | designated in writing by the copyright owner as "Not a Contribution." 61 | 62 | "Contributor" shall mean Licensor and any individual or Legal Entity 63 | on behalf of whom a Contribution has been received by Licensor and 64 | subsequently incorporated within the Work. 65 | 66 | 2. Grant of Copyright License. Subject to the terms and conditions of 67 | this License, each Contributor hereby grants to You a perpetual, 68 | worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable 69 | copyright license to reproduce, prepare Derivative Works of, 70 | publicly display, publicly perform, sublicense, and distribute the 71 | Work and such Derivative Works in Source or Object form. 72 | 73 | 3. Grant of Patent License. Subject to the terms and conditions of 74 | this License, each Contributor hereby grants to You a perpetual, 75 | worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable 76 | (except as stated in this section) patent license to make, have made, 77 | use, offer to sell, sell, import, and otherwise transfer the Work, 78 | where such license applies only to those patent claims licensable 79 | by such Contributor that are necessarily infringed by their 80 | Contribution(s) alone or by combination of their Contribution(s) 81 | with the Work to which such Contribution(s) was submitted. If You 82 | institute patent litigation against any entity (including a 83 | cross-claim or counterclaim in a lawsuit) alleging that the Work 84 | or a Contribution incorporated within the Work constitutes direct 85 | or contributory patent infringement, then any patent licenses 86 | granted to You under this License for that Work shall terminate 87 | as of the date such litigation is filed. 88 | 89 | 4. Redistribution. You may reproduce and distribute copies of the 90 | Work or Derivative Works thereof in any medium, with or without 91 | modifications, and in Source or Object form, provided that You 92 | meet the following conditions: 93 | 94 | (a) You must give any other recipients of the Work or 95 | Derivative Works a copy of this License; and 96 | 97 | (b) You must cause any modified files to carry prominent notices 98 | stating that You changed the files; and 99 | 100 | (c) You must retain, in the Source form of any Derivative Works 101 | that You distribute, all copyright, patent, trademark, and 102 | attribution notices from the Source form of the Work, 103 | excluding those notices that do not pertain to any part of 104 | the Derivative Works; and 105 | 106 | (d) If the Work includes a "NOTICE" text file as part of its 107 | distribution, then any Derivative Works that You distribute must 108 | include a readable copy of the attribution notices contained 109 | within such NOTICE file, excluding those notices that do not 110 | pertain to any part of the Derivative Works, in at least one 111 | of the following places: within a NOTICE text file distributed 112 | as part of the Derivative Works; within the Source form or 113 | documentation, if provided along with the Derivative Works; or, 114 | within a display generated by the Derivative Works, if and 115 | wherever such third-party notices normally appear. The contents 116 | of the NOTICE file are for informational purposes only and 117 | do not modify the License. You may add Your own attribution 118 | notices within Derivative Works that You distribute, alongside 119 | or as an addendum to the NOTICE text from the Work, provided 120 | that such additional attribution notices cannot be construed 121 | as modifying the License. 122 | 123 | You may add Your own copyright statement to Your modifications and 124 | may provide additional or different license terms and conditions 125 | for use, reproduction, or distribution of Your modifications, or 126 | for any such Derivative Works as a whole, provided Your use, 127 | reproduction, and distribution of the Work otherwise complies with 128 | the conditions stated in this License. 129 | 130 | 5. Submission of Contributions. Unless You explicitly state otherwise, 131 | any Contribution intentionally submitted for inclusion in the Work 132 | by You to the Licensor shall be under the terms and conditions of 133 | this License, without any additional terms or conditions. 134 | Notwithstanding the above, nothing herein shall supersede or modify 135 | the terms of any separate license agreement you may have executed 136 | with Licensor regarding such Contributions. 137 | 138 | 6. Trademarks. This License does not grant permission to use the trade 139 | names, trademarks, service marks, or product names of the Licensor, 140 | except as required for reasonable and customary use in describing the 141 | origin of the Work and reproducing the content of the NOTICE file. 142 | 143 | 7. Disclaimer of Warranty. Unless required by applicable law or 144 | agreed to in writing, Licensor provides the Work (and each 145 | Contributor provides its Contributions) on an "AS IS" BASIS, 146 | WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or 147 | implied, including, without limitation, any warranties or conditions 148 | of TITLE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, MERCHANTABILITY, or FITNESS FOR A 149 | PARTICULAR PURPOSE. You are solely responsible for determining the 150 | appropriateness of using or redistributing the Work and assume any 151 | risks associated with Your exercise of permissions under this License. 152 | 153 | 8. Limitation of Liability. In no event and under no legal theory, 154 | whether in tort (including negligence), contract, or otherwise, 155 | unless required by applicable law (such as deliberate and grossly 156 | negligent acts) or agreed to in writing, shall any Contributor be 157 | liable to You for damages, including any direct, indirect, special, 158 | incidental, or consequential damages of any character arising as a 159 | result of this License or out of the use or inability to use the 160 | Work (including but not limited to damages for loss of goodwill, 161 | work stoppage, computer failure or malfunction, or any and all 162 | other commercial damages or losses), even if such Contributor 163 | has been advised of the possibility of such damages. 164 | 165 | 9. Accepting Warranty or Additional Liability. While redistributing 166 | the Work or Derivative Works thereof, You may choose to offer, 167 | and charge a fee for, acceptance of support, warranty, indemnity, 168 | or other liability obligations and/or rights consistent with this 169 | License. However, in accepting such obligations, You may act only 170 | on Your own behalf and on Your sole responsibility, not on behalf 171 | of any other Contributor, and only if You agree to indemnify, 172 | defend, and hold each Contributor harmless for any liability 173 | incurred by, or claims asserted against, such Contributor by reason 174 | of your accepting any such warranty or additional liability. 175 | 176 | END OF TERMS AND CONDITIONS 177 | 178 | APPENDIX: How to apply the Apache License to your work. 179 | 180 | To apply the Apache License to your work, attach the following 181 | boilerplate notice, with the fields enclosed by brackets "[]" 182 | replaced with your own identifying information. (Don't include 183 | the brackets!) The text should be enclosed in the appropriate 184 | comment syntax for the file format. We also recommend that a 185 | file or class name and description of purpose be included on the 186 | same "printed page" as the copyright notice for easier 187 | identification within third-party archives. 188 | 189 | Copyright [yyyy] [name of copyright owner] 190 | 191 | Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); 192 | you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. 193 | You may obtain a copy of the License at 194 | 195 | http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0 196 | 197 | Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software 198 | distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, 199 | WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. 200 | See the License for the specific language governing permissions and 201 | limitations under the License. 202 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /README.md: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | # Electroplating Process 2 | 3 | One of the key primitives being developed by ProjectQuine is the ability to electroplate multi-material 3D printed parts. Being able to selectively augment parts of a 3D print with metal allows us to create usable printed circuit boards as well as more rigid or heat-resistant mechanical parts. This repo serves as a central place to document the process. 4 | 5 | The following process is currently capable of producing quite usable printed circuit boards: 6 |

7 | Assembled Circuits 8 |

9 | 10 | ## Hardware setup 11 | 12 | You will need the following hardware: 13 | - 3D printer. Preferably with a 0.2mm nozzle if you want to print small and accurate PCBs. 14 | - [Proto-pasta conductive filament](https://www.proto-pasta.com/collections/all/products/conductive-pla), or similar conductive filament. 15 | - A generic non-conductive PLA filament. 16 | - A variable power supply unit (PSU) that can function as a constant current or constant voltage source. Something like [this one](https://www.amazon.com/Adjustable-HANMATEK-HM305-Variable-Switching/dp/B0852JZQZR?th=1) 17 | - Copper piping, about 15mm in diameter. You should be able to pick this up at most hardware stores. 18 | - Large Crocodile clips. 19 | - A sulpuric-acid based electrolyte copper plating solution. During our testing, we used [Dr. Galva's Bright copper electrolyte](https://www.drgalva.com/Glanzkupferelektrolyt-sauer) but we believe most commercially available solutions are suitable. 20 | - [Jumper wires](https://www.adafruit.com/product/1954) and [0.1" header pins](https://www.adafruit.com/product/392) 21 | - A glass jar about 100mm or so in diameter. 22 | - latex gloves (or similar) for handling the electrolyte solution. 23 | - Some kind of stiff wire, it doesn't need to be conductive. We will just use this to create a bar across our bath to secure pieces to. 24 | - A small model of a printed circuit board. To start with you can use our test model here: https://www.prusaprinters.org/prints/88763-simple-flashing-printed-circuit 25 | 26 | First we need to setup the plating bath. We roughly want to follow the below diagram: 27 | 28 |

29 | Electroplating Circuit Diagram 30 |

31 | 32 | For our anode, we will cut two sections of copper piping, measure them to be about the length of our glass jar. You can then secure them to the side of the jar with the large croc clips. Wire the two copper croc clips together and connect them to the positive terminal of the PSU. 33 | 34 | The 3D printed part will be our cathode. The setup for this will change depending on the circuit you are printing, but for demonstration purposes we will use our [simple flashing printed circuit board](https://www.prusaprinters.org/prints/88763-simple-flashing-printed-circuit). You will notice in the photo below that there are a number of functional through holes, and then there are a number of holes with pins plated in place. I call these plating rivets and they are added to the circuit model specifically for plating. To create the cathode, we push a number of 0.1" header pins into the plating rivet holes and connect the jumper wires to the pins. The other end of the jumper wires need to all be connected up to the negative terminal of the PSU. 35 | 36 |

37 | Simple PCB with plating rivets 38 |

39 | 40 | Finally, use a section of stiff wire to create a bar across the mouth of the glass jar and secure it with tape either side. We can now add about 250ml of electrolyte solution to the glass jar. Make sure that at least 20mm or so of the copper piping is submerged. Make sure to always use gloves when working with the acidic solution. Trust me you don't want to rub this stuff in your eyes later in the day. The final setup will look like something like this: 41 | 42 |

43 | Basic Plating Bath Setup 44 |

45 | 46 | ## Printing the part 47 | 48 | With our plating bath all setup, we need to print some circuits to plate. We do this by creating a multi-material print. There are a number of different ways to do this, but since we currently only have a single nozzle, we slice the model with a pause at the layer where we start printing the circuit traces. When the printer pauses we simply swap the generic PLA for our fancy proto-pasta conductive filament and resume printing. There are obvious limitations to this approach, but it is a good starting point and gives us quite usable prints. 49 | 50 | In PrusaSlicer we do this by moving the layer height slider on the right hand side to the very first layer where the traces start being printed. We then right click the little "+" next to our slider and select "Add custome G-code". For our printer running klipper we just add the `PAUSE` macro which directs the printer to pause and move to a docked position. It's a good idea to make a note of the layer number where this macro is added, so that you can make sure to be around the printer when the pause happens and swap the filaments. 51 | 52 | Our printer setup is the [Voron Switchwire](https://vorondesign.com/voron_switchwire) running [Klipper](https://www.klipper3d.org/). All our test prints were done with a 0.2mm nozzle, 0.1mm layer height, 100% infill and 3 vertical shells. 53 | 54 | ## Plating the part 55 | 56 | Once you have a printed part, you need to carefully insert the 0.1" header pins into the plating rivet holes from the underside of the print (the side that was directly on the print bed). The pins should be a very snug pressfit and the tip of the pin should protrude from a millimeter or so from the surface of the trace. 57 | 58 |

59 | Example of inserted plating pins 60 |

61 | 62 | You can now connect up all the jumper wires to the pins. Once the pins are all in and we are happy the piece is secure, we can pop it into the plating solution. We want the circuit traces to be facing down towards the bottom of the glass jar. The whole model should be in the center of the jar and just a millimeter or so under the surface of the solution. One thing to beware of is that bubbles will form around the circuit trace. To counteract this, you need to give the piece a vigorous shake while submerged in the solution. 63 | 64 | Before we power up the PSU, make sure the cathode/printed part is not connected. We first want to set the voltage and current correctly. There are a number of ways to do this, but what we have found to be the most reliable is to set a current limit. Roughly, we want to set our current to be about 0.15mA per square millimeter of the printed part. So for our test PCB print which is ~200mm^2 we cap our current at 30mA. To set the current limit, short the postive and negative terminals of the PSU, the current control indicator LED should light up. Then, set the appropriate current limit by moving the current dial. The voltage you set is not super important, you will find when the current is capped the voltage will drop to about 0.1 or 0.2V. 65 | 66 | With the current limit set, we can now power up the PSU. The PSU should be in current control mode, if it's not, then it means you have either over estimated the current you need or you don't have a good connection on your cathode. When you first start the plating, visually inspect the underside of the circuit around the plating rivet pins, if you see tiny bubbles or a dark sooty area, then your current is way to high and you need to dial it down. 67 | 68 | It's now just a matter of waiting. For our test PCB it should plate in about 9 hours or so. With electroplating, its best to go slow and steady. If you go too fast, with a higher current you may find you get a very rough finish or even worse, you may find the copper just clumps up near the pins. 69 | 70 | ## Create your printable circuit 71 | 72 | In order to print a circuit, we need to get our design into something the 3D printer understands. Our current approach to this is a bit manual at the moment, but we will be working on a better approach soon. The basic idea is that you take the copper layer of an existing PCB design and export it to SVG. This is pretty [straight forward in kicad](https://hacmanchester.github.io/LaserCutter.PCB.Making/KiCad/KiCad-ExportSvg/) but you will need to figure this out for your preferred PCB design software. Once you have the SVG file, you simply need to import it into fusion 360 as a SVG in your sketch. 73 | 74 | With the bones of your copper layer imported into your 3D modelling software, we need to extrude all the traces. We have found that a trace height of about 0.5mm and width of 1mm works well. It is also a good idea to check clearances at this point. We have found that you don't want to go much lower than 0.3mm clearance distance between traces. Anything smaller than that you will find that plating starts to bridge between traces. Its also difficult to print with that much accuracy :) 75 | 76 | Once you have all the traces setup, you need to add a base board to form the non-conductive part of our circuit board. For our tests board we created a base board with a 1mm height. This allows enough of the 0.1" header pin to protrude from the surface of the trace during plating. If you want to make a thicker base, you will need to use longer rivet pins to make contact with the traces. 77 | 78 | Finally, you need to define the plating rivet holes. For our test PCB, these are defined with a 1mm diameter, but you can also do them at 0.8mm for a snugger fit. One of the difficult parts of this process is deciding on the placement of these holes. From a our experiments, a single pin can plate up to 40mm of a length of trace, assuming 1mm width and 0.5mm height. So when placing holes try make sure that every part of the circuit is with in 40mm from a plating hole. 79 | 80 | With all of that you should have a model that is print and plate ready. It might take some experimentation and iteration to get the perfect setup for your circuit. Hopefully as this project progresses we will develop a more automated approach to generating the models. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /images/assembled-circuits.jpeg: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/projectquine/electroplating/883435229244a34e89a5233d6fdfafdceaef19ba/images/assembled-circuits.jpeg -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /images/bath-setup.jpeg: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/projectquine/electroplating/883435229244a34e89a5233d6fdfafdceaef19ba/images/bath-setup.jpeg -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /images/example-plating-pins.jpeg: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/projectquine/electroplating/883435229244a34e89a5233d6fdfafdceaef19ba/images/example-plating-pins.jpeg -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /images/plating-diagram.jpeg: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/projectquine/electroplating/883435229244a34e89a5233d6fdfafdceaef19ba/images/plating-diagram.jpeg -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /images/prusaslicer.png: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/projectquine/electroplating/883435229244a34e89a5233d6fdfafdceaef19ba/images/prusaslicer.png -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /images/small-simple-pcb-in-hand.jpeg: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/projectquine/electroplating/883435229244a34e89a5233d6fdfafdceaef19ba/images/small-simple-pcb-in-hand.jpeg --------------------------------------------------------------------------------