Printed electronics and Offset

[Erik Nikkanen]

It had been hoped that there could be a potential for business for printers in the field of printed electronics.

This trend is already well underway but I had noticed that there was not much discussion about using the offset process. Presently most printed electronic circuits seem to be printed with every other printing process except offset.

I thought this might be due to ink film thickness and control issues with offset. I found a forum group on Linkedin related to this topic and asked what were the limiting issues about printing electrical circuits with offset.

The responses surprised me at first but made sense. According to the responses, there was a problem in developing inks with the electrical properties required, that would be compatible with lithography where a fountain solutions of any kind was used. Probably a similar problem if the waterless plate approach was used.

Anyhow, this seems to be why printing electronics with offset is done in such limited quantities.

I just thought I would post this because it seemed interesting. It also means for the time being, there is no big opportunity for offset printers to branch out and become printers for electrical suppliers.

[GazKL440]

I wonder how it would go with the "correct" inks on an old school letterpress? It would completely eliminate the need for fountain solution etc...

Food for thought...

[Erik Nikkanen]

I wonder how it would go with the "correct" inks on an old school letterpress? It would completely eliminate the need for fountain solution etc...

Food for thought...

In theory, that should work.

Sometimes they use flexo with the anilox inking but letterpress does basically the same thing with its raised image on the plate. It might be even better since one could run with higher viscosity inks than with flexo.

I guess a regular offset press could run with a dry offset plate (not waterless) and that would work too.

[chevalier]

Roll-to-roll production of Thinfilm Memory at InkTec - YouTube

I've heard rumblings from various knowledgable people for a while that this stuff is really near hitting a stride in the Flexo envrionment.

[Erik Nikkanen]

Roll-to-roll production of Thinfilm Memory at InkTec - YouTube

I've heard rumblings from various knowledgable people for a while that this stuff is really near hitting a stride in the Flexo envrionment.

Yes, it is going to be a big business.

Nice video. That process looked like rotary screen printing. Hell everything but offset. :-)

[chevalier]

minority report cereal - YouTube

I've heard that actual prototypes similar to this cereal box have been built but that the technology is not mass manufacturable yet. Imagine the prepress work needed for something like that - animation, engineering, printability - hurts the brain