DIY Electronics Perf Board - 3DP Concept

thingiverse

This is my very successful first attempt at making a PCB using a 3D printed substrate, and it's a DIY electronics low voltage Pref board customized to any application. For over 10 years, I've been building DIY circuit boards for home projects. I previously used scrapped FR4 PCB boards in all my past projects - recycled from old electronics. Components are removed, and leads/traces carefully sanded off. New component holes are drilled using an old breadboard as a pin guide. Headers are crazy glued, connections are made using wire traces, and a tight loop method is used to solder everything down. Of course, this process is really time-consuming but has worked very successfully on all of my past projects. The majority of PCBs I've been designing as of late are low-voltage interface boards for Arduino tech. I had an idea with my current project (a future post about a robot, maybe) to attempt making a custom 3D printed substrate to cut out all the issues with reworking recycled PCBs. I could CAD in all component pin holes and design a 1.6mm plate of any shape or size. Since it's made of PLA, the board would meltdown quickly in high temps but work great for digital low-voltage applications. This being my first attempt, I wanted to prove you can easily solder on PLA without damaging the board or affecting the joint of the solder. It worked so well that I finished the entire project board while testing and had no issues. Sorry, I didn't take the time to sketch in component holes - just hand-drilled them. I was just testing the concept this time around. But I have already collected a lot of .stls on Thingiverse for most common headers and parts. Can't wait to lay out the next project using this concept. I included some pics of old FR4 recycled PCBs I designed in the past. Enjoy