Copper ink for the Voltera - highet conductivity and cheapest

[Ofer]

At Copprint we released recently a new nano-copper paste for printing on FR4 called LF-370

This new ink was tested for screen printing and we can extrude it as well. However, we still didn’t test it with a Voltera system as we do not have one.

• Conductive copper ink for printing on FR4 and Alumina
• Highest conductivity in class ~5.3 µΩcm
• Best sheet resistance ~2.2mΩ/□/mil
• Excellent durability and adhesion
• Very simple and fast screen printing and sintering
• Solderable
• Hybrid ink – nano and micro copper particles
• Much cheaper than silver inks
• To download product presentation, click here
• To order, Click here

If you are interested to perform firsts tests, contact us at info@copprint.com

[cborn]

@Ofer This sounds very interesting, it would be good to know if it was compatible with the Voltera. Have you talked to the lovely people at Voltera about testing it? They are in the best position to come up with compatible settings, and may be interested in reselling it in small quantities for a reasonable markup?

I have a few questions for you:

1. Is it compatible with standard 60/40 solder? The need to use a special solder is problematic with the Voltera inks.

2. How well does it bond to the FR4 substrate? Does it require (or perform better with) surface pre-treatment?

3. Is it available in reasonable quantities for the occasional and intermittent use typical of the Voltera? I know even the minimum 1ml Voltera ink purchase is well past its recommended use-by date before I get to use it. I see you list it at 550 Euros/1kg. How about 10 Euros for 10 grams, suitable for testing on the Voltera?

[pion]

@Ofer, This is a very cool development and I would love to know if it’s compatible with the V-One. In addition to @cborn’s great questions, can you also tell us:

1. Is it compatible with common lead-free solder alloys?
2. Does it bond to the FR1 substrate that Voltera uses?
3. Have you performed high-frequency and high-current tests? How does LF-370 compare to normal copper traces of equal width, length, thickness, and geometry?

[freezedream]

@Ofer Thanks for making us aware of Copprint’s remarkable copper ink! I would be extremely keen to test your LF-300 ink as we have a particular interest in printing on paper-based substrates with the V-One. Silver ink is really too expensive for some applications. I note that the ink is compostable which is a very attractive feature in our case.

[jazozaya]

Hi @Ofer,

Welcome to the forums. If you are looking to get your hands on a V-One, please contact our sales team - sales@voltera.io

Some housekeeping issues:

• We do not allow advertising on our forums. Even if you have good intentions.
• I have moved your post to the ‘Adventure Mode’ category.

With that said, it appears there is some healthy discussion so this post hasn’t been removed yet.

@cborn - We introduced half cartridges a few months ago to help address the shelf life concerns. Here is the link.

@freezedream - I was hoping you could expand on your particular needs if you can. Are you printing antenna’s on paper or similar? Have you tried printing it with the V-One on paper?

We are always collecting feedback, if there are specific applications you need covered feel free to discuss in the forums.

If you want to see particular product offerings please contact materials@voltera.io

[cborn]

@jazozaya
Jesus, when I read @Ofer’s post I was hoping he was intending a serious discussion on an alternative ink, rather than just spamming the forum. As he hasn’t bothered to follow up with any replies that doesn’t seem to be the case.
Thanks for not removing the thread, I would feel uncomfortable if I thought discussion was being censored for commercial purposes, even though it is your right to do so. I think we all benefit from hearing about compatible and improved materials and techniques, no matter the source.

I don’t expect any casual Voltera users would buy the minimum 1kg of the product on the chance it may work as implied (or at all) on the V-One. However if there is real substance behind the claims, it may be that Voltera could work with the manufacturer to optimize it for the V-One, or if by some fluke it worked in current form could sell it repackaged in small quantities with a funny animal name at a 10x (or even 100x ?) markup and we would still buy it from you.
(And I was referring to the 1ml ‘half’ cartridge in point 3 of my previous post. Not in any way complaining, just pointing out that their minimum 1kg purchase made no sense in the context of a normal V-One user!)

Who wouldn’t want an easily cured,mechanically robust, environmentally friendly low cost conductive paste compatible with normal soldering processes, it seems the Holy Grail of printable inks!

[Well, the real Holy Grail of printable inks is the multi-layer conductive/insulating system we were promised when first purchasing the V-One, but that seems to be a distant, fading vision now. Sadly I can’t recall the last time I read a progress report on that development line. - Just saying…]

[freezedream]

@jazozaya Thanks for the support. We have already begun experimenting with the Flex 2 silver ink on paper and coated paper substrates and it prints well. We’re developing sensors/biosensors and energy storage devices and we are formulating own inks compatible with the V-One already. Obviously the copper conductive ink is quite an attractive prospect for the V-One. As @cborn said, it would be wonderful to see Voltera and Copprint work together on making that happen in the future.

[Ofer]

@cborn As a result of this post we are now in touch with the Voltera people and they will start the testing.
Regarding your questions - we have used standard solder paste for that. We did not perform testing for many substrates.
Re adhesion - we found excelent adhesion to FR4 (passing the standard tape test and cross-hatched test).
Regarding quantities - Our focus today is screen printing pastes which are packed at larger cans. We are less interested in small quantities given the overheads.

[Ofer]

@pion
It is compatible with standard solder alloys but we did not test many solder alternatives.
We still haven’t tested it on FR.
Our key experience with the copper trances is for RFID and Bluetooth antennas which are working well. The LF370 has a sheet resistance of 2.2 mOhm/sq/mil vs 0.7 for bulk copper. So you are talking about x3 factor. Note that printed conductive inks patterns have a high porosity so if you normalize the conductivity by the amount of metallic particles, you will get more than 50% conductivity by weight.

[Ofer]

@freezdream
We have much experience printing antennas and circuits on paper which are compostable. But this will be a different paste (LF-300).

[Ofer]

@jazozaya
As a result of my original post, we are in touch with the Voltera guys to test.
We have no experience with the V-One and have tried to look for people with the system to perform initial testing with no success yet.

[Ofer]

would buy the minimum 1kg of the product

@cborn - I am sorry I do not comply to your standard for answering posts instantaneously. I have many other activities (surprisingly).
Indeed copper inks seem to be a dream for years but it is a reality now. We are doing it with screen printing for few years now and are curious to see how it works on a simple extrusion platform.

[cborn]

@Ofer - I’m very glad to see you back, and really looking forward to getting hold of some of your product for testing. Hopefully Voltera will run some trials to come up with the best settings for the V-One, and make some smaller quantities available for us.
Sorry about the “spamming” remark, but to be fair 5 days is far from “instantaneous”!

[freezedream]

@Ofer I’m very pleased to hear that your company is now working with Voltera to make your FR4 ink availalbe for the V-One.

Will there be any possibility to evalute Copprint’s LF-300 paper substrate ink? Purchasing 1kg solely for testing purposes isn’t very practical or economical if it doesn’t turn out to be suitable for our application. I’ve made contact with you via email, so perhaps we can continue our correspondence there. Thank you.

[pion]

Thanks @Ofer. In addition to the DC resistance you mention, I’m specifically interested in seeing a comparison of Bode plots across the 0-10GHz range for various geometries of traces between standard copper and LF-370. I’m trying to understand the usable limits of prototyping high-frequency circuits on a V-One.

[Rocksetta]

Any update on this post about copprint ink. The pros and cons. Since it is an old post I assume the cost is too high or their is some other reason to stay away from it.