Create Your Own Electronics with a 3D Printer

The 3D printing craze is still full-steam ahead. Thingiverse member, CarryTheWhat (who sells 3D printed stuff on Etsy) recently posted a design for a solder-free, 3D printed Circuit board.

The goal of this project is to enable the personal manufacturing of simple electronics, especially for Open Source Hardware — with nothing except a 3D printer, your hands or equivalent, and the basic high-technology electronic components (capacitors, motors, transistors, etc — but will eventually encompass ICs, microcontrollers etc). Instead of solder, wires, and breadboards, OpenSCAD generates a peg-board PCB and component holder, and a circuit can be hand-wound together with conductive thread.

Using this design he created this pretty damned funky Cutaway LED Flashlight. It’s made entirely out of printed parts, 4 lengths of conductive thread, 2 batteries and 4 LEDs.

If you’re a DIY junkie with a 3D printer handy, you can find detailed instructions on how to make your own flashlight at his post on instructables.

So tempted to get a 3D printer just so I can play too…