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www.us- tech.com


Bringing PCB Prototyping to the Workbench


By JF Brandon, VP Marketing, BotFactory, Inc. T


he vast majority of electronics, from medical devices to smartphones, are designed and purchased in the United


States, yet are nearly always manufactured offshore in Asia. Prototyping the first itera- tions of these electronic devices is often done in the same factory where millions of units are subsequently created. The cost of one prototype may equal


the cost of 100 units. When one includes shipping costs, duties, downtime, and even linguistic barriers, the expense can be pro- hibitive. However, prototypes — those high- cost, high-value items — can now be made in America.


Printing a New Future BotFactory was founded on the idea


that it is possible to shrink the distance be- tween fabrication tools and the designer — to miniaturize the elements of the PCB fac- tory into a product small enough to fit on a workbench. The company’s Squink PCB printer, now used


in universities, offices, and research labs around the world, is able to fabricate multilayer circuits,


PCB production using 3D printing


technology is allowing prototyping to return to the U.S. from abroad.


dispense conductive pastes, and pick-and-place components onto rigid or flexible substrates. With the machine, designers can create prototypes, ex-


Squink PCB printer with a multilayer circuit.


periment with flexible circuits and different pastes, and assemble boards quickly, ultimately boosting innovation. BotFactory was founded by Nicolas Vansnick,


Carlos Ospina and Michael Knox, in 2013. Ospina and Vansnick were graduate students at New York University, where Knox is a professor of elec- trical engineering. The idea for the company was sparked during a bio-electronics class, where the final project for each student was to create an EEG system. After a few months of ideation and research,


the eight groups of students had a one- month period to design, fabricate and test the circuit for their EEG systems. In the end, seven groups failed to meet the dead- line, because they were waiting for their PCBs to be fabricated by outside vendors. It- erations took two weeks to be made and mis- takes were costly. The lesson was not lost on Vansnick,


Ospina and Knox. If this was a typical prob- lem for any project, then a solution would prove revolutionary for electronics prototyp- ing and fabrication. As a result, BotFactory was founded. It quickly became clear that both printing and assembly would be critical to meeting market demands. In 2014 the company completed its first prototype and launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund the first production batch. By mid-2016 the company was shipping its first units. By the end of the year, it had shipped more than 100, and raised $1.3 million in seed capital to support operations and R&D. Every Bot-


Factory machine has been designed and manufac- tured in New York.


Squink 3D Printer The Squink PCB printer is equipped with


three hot-swappable tool heads that are used for different parts of the fabrication process. BotFacto- ry uses a proprietary silver nanoparticle fluid to inkjet print the conductive traces, as small as 10 mils (0.25 mm), onto the substrate and cure them with heat up to 110°C (230°F).


Continued on next page


May, 2017


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