The OP said conductive "paint". I'd think the solvents used would be a problem.…
What type of "conductive ink" are you using. Is it simply conductive, or is it a reactive ink that gives a conductive product
simply lacks basis in fact. Can you provide some citations to support that? NB: There is no requirement that the ink itself as applied to the substrate be conductive. For example , the modified Tollens' reagent mentioned above is not appreciably conductive until the silver cations are reduced to elemental silver upon drying." Suspended particles? Bad. Conductive? Bad."
The fact is, any but the finest particles will plug the jets. The fact is, some printers use electrostatics to accelerate the ink towards the paper. A conductive ink would be expected to interfere with this. The fact is, inkjet printers are designed around their ink technology; surface tension, viscosity, and on and on.A statement such as ,
simply lacks basis in fact.
The type of printer of which the heads are part of it - usually have a sponge bit in the cartridge so the ink doesn't just run out when its not in the printer - that would most likely filter out all the conductive particles.Hello,
Using other ink in the printer cartridge will give you problems.
Most likely the print head will be destroyed.
Bertus
sorry for the late reply,I agree in general with the comments above, but there may be other considerations.
What type of inkjet printer are you using? It is important to know whether it is the HP type or Epson type cartridge. Is it designed for commercial or home use?
What type of "conductive ink" are you using. Is it simply conductive, or is it a reactive ink that gives a conductive product (i.e., a modified Tollens' reagent)?
John
The epson style printers are the most common for ink formulators. Any mixture can be squirted out as long as the particle size is small enough. The piezo 'piston' is quite powerful and forgiving of formulation variations.It is kind of hard to tell exactly what was done, but the reference to the patented method describes an in situ reduction of Ag+ to silver. That is very similar to the method I linked to above. The latter method uses formic acid. All the reaction products, except the metallic silver are volatile, and the reagents are relatively non-toxic.
One could also envision using similar chemistry to print a water-insoluble resist from a aqueous solution directly on a PCB for etching. That would circumvent the problems those who use Epson printers have had with dye solubility.
A difference I see that might affect results is whether the printer used thermal inkjet or piezoelectric to eject the tiny droplets of ink (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inkjet_printing). The thermal process may affect these reactive inks adversely, but that would need to be verified by testing. According to the Wikipedia link, Epson uses a piezoelectric ejection method, which at fist glance might be more suitable.
Good luck.
John
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