Reprap PCB producer?

Hey so looking at the new store and the pre-printed pc-boards, how come the reprap cannot produce its own PCB? A simple metal extruder could lay a layer or two of metal in the design necessary, and walla! a PCB for teh cost of materials. Has anyone worked on anything like this?

They are working on this. If you check the blogs, you'll see examples of simple circuits on a white plastic with leds in them. It's all pretty preliminary at this stage, but definitely being worked on.

It has been discussed, and is somewhat-planned-for, at least. See the FuturePlans Wiki page [reprap.org] -- under v2.0 Mendel it says in part:

> Print head capable of printing conductive material to create embedded circuits

Also, on the blog in February, Forrest wrote about experiments with depositing solder. [blog.reprap.org]

RepRap needs to learn to crawl before it can walk... but if you can help design, build and test a prototype print head with that kind of capability, there will definitely be plenty of appreciative Reprappers!

Jonathan

Yes, there are different approaches to this issue.
It basically all boils down to finding the appropriate material and printing method.
There are solder and similar low-fusion metals. I will probably be looking at conductive plastics made from metal powder filled resins. let's see what's the lowest resistance i can get to