The Use of a Water Soluble Flexible Substrate to Embed Electronics in Additively Manufactured Objects: From Tattoo to Water Transfer Printed Electronics

Abstract

The integration of electronics into the process flow of the additive manufacturing of 3D objects is demonstrated using water soluble films as a temporary flexible substrate. Three process variants are detailed to evaluate their capabilities to meet the additive manufacturing requirements. One of them, called water transfer printing, shows the best ability to fabricate electronics onto 3D additively manufactured objects. Moreover, a curved capacitive touchpad hidden by color films is successfully transferred onto the 3D objects, showing a potential application of this technology to fabricate fully additively manufactured discrete or even hidden electronic devices.

Keywords

• water soluble substrates
• water transfer printing
• additive manufacturing
• 3D electronics
• flexible electronics
• stretchable electronics