I ran across this tonight. It is an electrical circuit pen made by Kandenko. There has to be a use for it in our hobby.
Ron - I have seen items like this before and most have a very high resistance and will only work with very low current-draw items like LEDs. You will also note from the listing on Amazon
that is only works with special paper.
Please look at the first segment on the video - to my eyes the circuit does not appear to be real - the LEDs on the right don’t complete a circuit.
I would be very skeptical of this item - might be OK for a fix on a cracked circuit board or something like that but it is not a substitute for wire!
dave
Hey David, good to hear from you. It has been a while! I was just curious if these types of pens would work for 12V LED’s. I have a bunch of the LED sets that are used to light Lehman Christmas Villages that Walmart was getting rid of. They are 3V and are bright LED’s. They worked well last Halloween open house in lighting buildings. Wonder if these pens would work for those? Some of these dollar stores have very low voltage LED’s in different products that might work as well.
Ron - not really sure as they want you to use their “special paper” - I have a feeling that costs would make such a project rather unattractive.
Perhaps someone has purchased and tested one - the reviews on Amazon are mixed.
dave
Ron, I’m curious, just how were you going to use this? glue the leds inside the buildings and draw the “wires” on the inside of the building?
(I agree, you need the special paper, and of course paper outside probably not great)
Greg
I will stick with using the trashed LAN cables and printer cables I brought home. Inside there are coloured wires. Once I strip off the outer layer, I have coloured wires to colour code my wiring, and its cheaper then a pen and special paper…read, free.
Greg, I was more curious than anything else. I did wonder if the LED was attached to the wall, would that pen work to complete a circuit. My buildings base wall is made of luen, so it is somewhat smooth. It was something new I found and wonder what the possibilities were. Thought it might work in a passenger car with LED’s.
Yeah, sounds like a cool idea if it would work. Unfortunately, even using a silver “paint” that would work:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/MG-Chemicals-842AR-Silver-Conductive-Pen-/112159306748
Most of this stuff is low current, much lower than the 10-20 ma you need for a LED
Expensive, but cool idea though!
Greg
I used the solver conductive paint 20 years ago to make some resistive wheels so I could detect the the end of the train on an automatic train display.
Just glued a SMD 10K resistor to the axle and used the paint stick to draw the wires to the back of the wheels/ Still is working today.
Going to use this again for some new projects.
Reading the specs on the silver paint pen, looks like you might make multiple passes to make the trace thicker for more current.
Let us know how it works out please Dennis.
Greg
Greg Elmassian said:
Reading the specs on the silver paint pen, looks like you might make multiple passes to make the trace thicker for more current.
Let us know how it works out please Dennis.
Greg
Will do, have to look at the new specs on the pens today. The one I had for 20 years dried up.
Dennis
We use silver inks in my line of work, but only for EMI shielding. Highly conductive but fragile when left exposed to the elements. Also if there is any silver density to the ink it becomes quite expensive! Definitely not well suited for current.
You can buy resist pens and copper clad FR4 for making your own simple circuit boards…then you can even solder components if you wish.
…and you can buy copper coated vinyl (A4) to make your own PCB circuits on a vinyl cutter mounting the result on plasticard and componets added and it can be soldered…
In the UK it’s here
http://www.techsoft.co.uk/Products/KnifeCuttingMaterials/CutronicFoilPCBs
Right, but that’s not the application, it’s painting conductive lines on the insides of buildings to power LEDs.
Greg
Heck…you can buy dolls house press on flat wiring for a model building power supply…
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dollhouse-Miniature-Tapewire-Tape-Wire-15-Feet-Cir-Kit-/201846344625
Greg Elmassian said:
Right, but that’s not the application, it’s painting conductive lines on the insides of buildings to power LEDs.
Greg
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Does the remark only apply to me Greg? - as it appears another poster has made a comment not specifically related to drawing copper lines.
Ross, maybe I misinterpreted your post.
So you would get some of this material, then cut it into strips or shapes to “wire up” the leds?
I guess that might have some advantages over just using wire… and I may not understand Ron’s objectives, maybe the extra concealment of the flat material against the walls would be superior to just using wires and tacking them to the inside walls.
Greg