Component placement
Here's an idea I had for a slightly different way of attaching components to a reprap that may improve bonding and electrical properties.

The difference with this approach is that for parts containing electronics, the automated production would be paused at some point and a human would assist by placing components into the appropriate places. The placement would be very straightforward, just resting the components in appropriately shaped cavities that would hold them securely enough for a conductive layer to be applied, holding them firmly in place.

Another advantage of this approach is that you can potentially have multiple layers of components, making use of three dimensions rather than just two. This could be quite beneficial given the small scale integration density of the RP approach. Unfortunately this would require human intervention for each layer. Of course once the basic system is working, no doubt others will build add-ons to automate more of the process, so a little human intervention isn't much of a disadvantage in the early days.
- posted by Simon McAuliffe @ 06:27