Definition of Printed Electronics

Those of you unenthusiastic about 3D printing might have had the same thought as Dr. Simon Leigh: "It's always great seeing the complex and intricate models of devices such as mobile phones or television remote controls that can be produced with 3D printing, " he said, "but that's it, they are invariably models that don't really function."

With that in mind Dr. Leigh, a researcher at the University of Warwick's School of Engineering, decided to do something about it. a material called carbomorph, which is basically an inexpensive, printable plastic. It can be loaded into any of the rash of low-cost 3D printers we see hitting the market. But here's the thing: it's conductive.

What this means is that owners of 3D printers can spec electronic tracks, sensors, and touch-sensitive areas into their designs, and print out things like functioning game controllers or sensor-embedded objects. (To prove the latter, the research team printed a mug that could detect how much liquid it was holding.) Of course you still need a connection point, but it's as simple as printing sockets into your object, and then you can connect things like Arduino controllers.

Dr. Leigh and company even 3D-printed a wearable glove with touch sensitivity built into it, so that flexing fingers would cause a change in resistance in the sensor printed inside of it.

...An 'exo-glove' was designed consisting of a main body of 3D printed clear PLA and strips of carbomorph embedded over each finger to detect resistance changes upon movement of the finger.... The whole device was printed in a single, un-paused print run with the flat back portion of the 'glove' printed first.