Multi3D was founded by two materials scientists to turn 3D printing of electronics into a reality.  Arduino, Adafruit, Sparkfun and many others have made getting into and learning about electronics REALLY fun and SUPER easy.   However, putting complex projects together on a perfboard can get tedious and messy. You could order your own circuit boards, but this can get expensive fast for small numbers of boards, and who wants to wait when you could make your own?  Rather than purchase some custom machine for making printed circuit boards, we thought the best solution to this problem would be to turn low-cost 3D printers into circuit fabricators with a highly conducting 3D printing filament.

We have worked for months to bring you a filament that is not only 100 times more conductive that anything else on the market, but can be printed with no clogs, and can be used to rapidly assemble circuits from surface mount and through hole components with NO SOLDERING.  Using a $60 solder reflow station (see the video above for a demo), circuits with dozens of leds can be assembled in minutes.  Its so easy I literally watched a five year old do it.

After making this filament, we had no idea if anyone would be interested in buying it, so on April 23rd, 2016, we took our filament, $400 3D printer, and a few 3D printed LED signs out to the Burlington Mini Maker Faire.  Many people were amazed by what they saw, including one guy who said, "I've been to dozens of Maker Faires, but this is the first time I saw something fundamentally new."  Others looked and saw a new tool for making wearable led projects, RF components, and complex LED lighting panels.  Clearly there are many potential applications for a highly conductive 3D printing filament just waiting to be explored.

This project has been incredibly fun and rewarding because not only do we get to invent 3D printed electronics as we go, but through the power of the maker movement and the internet, we get to rapidly share our progress with others who love to learn and make things.  We'd love to hear your questions or ideas for what's next in 3D printed electronics.