After soldering together my first PCB board (A QT110 power switch, which was a success), I was curious about something. I used wire for all the connections, since I figured doing copper trace etching wasn't worth it for such a small circuit. Could I use a conductive pen to connect wires together on a PCB board instead of using wire? Thanks. Astaroth
i wouldn't see why not.. looking at a conductive pen now gives me an idea that i can make circuit boards on anything that i can put holes in to mount components... quite interesting
but how woudl you solder to te conductive pen traces? only way that would work nicely is with the boards with a bunch of copepr pads on them and use pen to trace them out right. the boards im thinking of are like 3$ at radio shack, i have one actually but its really only useful as something to hold components for point-to-point wiring
well u can drill yer holes, draw the circuit, put yer components in and have the legs stick out on the circuit side, and then put a drop of solder to hold in place
On my power button PCB I got a solder ringed PCB and ran wires between each connection, because I was sure it would work. I'll pick up and conductive pen today at work and give that a whirl for the reset switch I'll be doing and let everyone know. My only question would be the voltage/current that the pen can support, but seeing as how all the voltages are under 5.5v and should be well under 1 amp, I think I'll be fine. Astaroth
Conductive pens give a fairly high resistance track, so wouldn't suit many circuits. And you can't solder to it. What you can use is sticky-back copper track, you drill holes at the side of it and bend leads over before soldering. Expensive though, and stripboard saves a lot of work for simple circuits.
The pen I got lists the resistance at .2 ohms per mil, which I believe is .001 inches. That would add tons of resistance in a 4" trace, so I'm assuming this would be a bad idea for circuits. (As people pointed out above) Thanks, Astaroth
That pen is ment to fix scratches and cracks in existing traces. I believe they were originally made for repairing those defroster lines on car rear windows, but later people realized they could be used for repairs in other places where soldering isn't possible like hairline cracks in copper circuit board traces where a soldering iron would not reach or create too much damage. Short version: it is ment for repairs, not to draw complete traces.
