On Jan 23, 2006, at 12:23 AM, Peter Todd wrote:

> I'd love to hear some better ideas!

How about using silkscreen or inkjet like processes to lay down
somewhat conductive ink and/or something thermally sensitive OVER
your PCB traces (and perhaps forming some of the components?  That
would get you solder-based wires (using solder paste and post-baking,
if you're lucky and it doesn't wick away) or hopefully something
more secure using (for instance) graphite based compositions.
Similarly, you might etch a pattern using assorted techniques out
of a conductive material OTHER than copper.  LOTS of metals are
available as "foil" and could presumably be laminated similar to
the Nth layer of a normal PCB...  Or you could look at ways of
"manually" making lots of connections to wire-like material in a
quicker way; pick&place jumpers made out of bismuth, or some sort
of sewing-machine-like thing.  People used to assemble core memory
with thousands of cores, and while it wasn't QUICK, it wasn't that
slow either.  Likewise, hand wirewrap proceeds at better than 30
wires per hour, so 1000-odd connections isn't unthinkable.

But I think your hopes of running 10+ years and blowing 1000s of
fuses (of whatever sort) off of a single set of batteries are pretty
optimistic.

BillW

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