Martin,

On Wed, 17 Jan 2007 10:47:43 -0500, Martin Klingensmith wrote:

> On the subject of printing circuit boards: is conductive toner possible?
> Imagine if you could print semi-conductive traces on a piece of mylar
> and then electroplate the traces, creating your own very rapidly
> prototyped circuit board? I don't know if a laser printer would choke on
> conductive toner though. There are issues with electroplating it too,
> I'm sure.

Given that laser printers use electrostatic attraction to produce the toner pattern on the drum, I think having conductive toner is a non-starter - it 
would almost certainly "short out" the pattern of static, ruining the image.  Even if it didn't migrate between areas of "print", you'd probably find the 
charge would flow to the outer edge of every area (due to like charges repelling), so the toner in the middle would drop off again and you'd end up 
with just an outline of each object.

Nice idea though!

Cheers,


Howard Winter
St.Albans, England


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