December 2013

Cartesian Co. EX¹ 3D Printer
Now you can print circuits on boards, cloth, paper and more!
Article By Steven R. Rochlin

  The EX¹ 3D printer ($899 on up) makes printing circuits as quick and easy as printing a photograph says the company's Kickstarter page. You can print on the material of your choice quickly and repeatedly for either testing your design or making fully-functional products. The Cartesian Co. printer EX¹ transforms electronics and prototyping in the same way that 3D printing has made things possible that were inconceivable only five years ago.

The EX¹ printer is not designed to create any 3D object like normal 3D printers. It has been crafted and designed for one key purpose, to allow you to 3D print circuit boards. It layers silver nano particles onto paper or any suitable surface to rapidly create a circuit board. The process is as easy as clicking File and then Print. In addition to more conventional circuit board materials the EX¹ can print on a variety of different substrates you might not associate with circuits. Materials we have been able to print on include plastic (many types), glass, wood, ceramic, silicone and even fabric and paper. In fact it is possible to print on most surfaces. If that's not enough, we are developing coatings that can allow virtually any surface to be printed on.

Cartesian Co. wants to change the way you think about electronics in the same way that 3D printers fundamentally changed the way we think about making physical objects. Imagine the freedom to instantly test your ideas without the monotony of making a PCB by hand, the time spent wiring it on a breadboard or the days spent waiting to get your design back from a board house. With the EX¹ you can make complex circuits as easily as if they were printed on your desktop printer.