Squink Assembles Printed Circuit Boards in Minutes

Squink was created by BotFactory, a Brooklyn-based company at the NYU Poly DUMBO Incubator that is in the process of raising $100,000 through a crowdfunding effort on Kickstarter to launch the product.

The desktop unit can print and assemble circuits in minutes on flexible or rigid substrates. It can be connected to a computer via USB, Ethernet or Wi-Fi, and doesn't require any software. Users can print GERBER RS-274X files, or upload PNG, JPG or BMP files. The unit uses the soldermask file generated by CAD tools to place dots of conductive glue at every connection point. A vacuum picks up components from a tray, aligns them, and places them accurately on the circuit.

“Squink is a personal circuit factory,” said Carlos Ospina, BotFactory co-founder and CTO. “It lowers the barrier for hardware design and fabrication. Squink can be used by experienced designers to accelerate their development cycle, and empowers communities with limited access to fabrication services. When some say that hardware is 'hard,' our technology is here to show it doesn’t need to be.”

According to the designers, later versions of the system could print insulating layers on the circuits, along with additional layers on top of that. The result could be a whole new way to prototype circuit boards.

The flexible circuit boards the Squink can already produce are significantly cheaper than what a traditional circuit board manufacturer could provide—the company claims a production cost of just $5.

Source: BotFactory