May, 2017
www.us-
tech.com Bringing PCB Prototyping to the Workbench Continued from previous page The insulating layer is a polymer that is also
ink-jetted and cured by an onboard UV lamp, leav- ing openings where different layers may connect. Dispensing is accomplished with a linear actuator and a paste- or glue-filled syringe. Pick-and-place is a little more complicated.
Components as small as 0603 are placed on a tray where a vacuum-powered tip picks up the part, brings it to an upward-facing camera for inspec- tion and adjustment and is then placed on the board. Squink can be used to print, paste and as- semble a circuit, or to paste and assemble a pre- fabricated board. There is no need to download software —
everything is already on the machine. The opera- tor uses a computer browser to connect to the ma- chine and interact with it, dragging-and-dropping Gerber files or image files for print- ing and pasting, along with a cen- troid and rotation file for assembly. BotFactory has put a great deal of ef- fort into making the software as easy as possible to use, so that little train- ing is required after purchasing the machine.
Enabling Innovation The machine is designed to
make PCB prototyping rapid and ac- cessible. One of the largest markets for this is in education. The massive growth of high-tech devices that has laid the foundation for the Informa- tion Age has been guided by well-ed- ucated engineers and technicians.
Onboard pick-and-place verification camera.
house prototyping options, the need for multilayer boards and fine motor control for dispensing and
assembling boards is too difficult. BotFactory’s Squink can meet a wide variety
of application needs. The machine can print and assemble circuit boards on very thin and light sub- strates, perhaps for hyper-light drones or aircraft. It could be used to create smart labels for custom packaging. It might be used to create an LED ar- ray that is esthetically pleasing enough that the board could be exposed, rather than embedded in the design. A generous amount of exploration and innovation can now be applied to electronic design and layout, harvested from the time saved waiting for boards to be created on the other side of the planet. Contact: BotFactory, Inc., 29-10 Thomson Av-
enue, Room C760, Suite 9, Long Island City, NY 11101 % 347-302-0912 E-mail:
jf.brandon@botfac-
tory.co Web:
www.botfactory.co r
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The Squink dispenses silver nanoparticle fluid to make conductive traces.
As the need for Internet of
Things (IoT) devices and smart gadg- ets proliferates, the U.S. needs stu- dents with the skills to create them. This starts with having the ability and tools to experiment and to make mistakes. Universities are also hubs for
research. Flexible and stretchable circuits are a rapidly-growing market segment with the potential for use in e-textiles and smart clothing. Creat- ing test boards or one-off designs to meet a project goal or explore an idea that may or may not be a dead-end is very common, and currently, very ex- pensive. Many colleges have proto- typing labs, and teachers, students and researchers rely on their lab technicians to help make ideas reali- ty. BotFactory has created Squink to be there for them. In both large and small private
companies there is pressure to meet deadlines. The value-chain that turns hunks of plastic and metal into a fi- nal prototype is very long, and often upper management and clients move goalposts and deadlines, forcing engi- neers to churn out prototypes almost on demand. Often these designs are very
simple, and while micro-milling and PCB toner/etching can be viable in-
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