A proposal for additively manufacturing printed circuits by employing concentrated solar energy

Abstract

A novel method capable of generating printed circuits using concentrated solar energy (CSE) is proposed. The open literature has reported that no method employs CSE to obtain printed circuits additively. Based on the Mill & Fill method, a conductive material (Sn63Pb37) is deposited inside a trench milled on a thermoplastic substrate (PETG). The concentrated solar beam melts the conductive material to form a solid trace, while the substrate relaxes its structure and allows the inclusion of the path. The resulting hybrid joining between plastic and metal is like those obtained by LAMP (laser-assisted joining of metal-polymer). The 20 conducted tests found that the magnitude of direct solar radiation and the overall system efficiency are the most influential variables on the exposure time of the trace to the solar spot. Each test, with its conditions, was simulated in COMSOL Multiphysics software, and the temperatures obtained experimentally were compared with those obtained by simulation. This proposal is expected to serve as a bridge between both fields of study so that solar concentrators will be considered in the additive manufacturing of printed circuits and expand CSE's potential for developing consumer goods.

Keywords

• Mill & fill
• Metal plastic joining
• Conductive traces deposition
• Fresnel lens solar concentrator