Fibercuit: Prototyping High-Resolution Flexible and Kirigami Circuits with a Fiber Laser Engraver

Prototyping compact devices with unique form factors often requires the PCB manufacturing process to be outsourced, which can be expensive and time-consuming. In this paper, we present Fibercuit, a set of rapid prototyping techniques to fabricate high resolution, flexible circuits on-demand using a fiber laser engraver. We showcase techniques that can laser cut copper-based composites to form fine-pitch conductive traces, laser fold copper substrates that can form kirigami structures, and laser solder surface-mount electrical components using off-the-shelf soldering pastes. Combined with our software pipeline, an end user can design and fabricate flexible circuits which are dual-layer and three-dimensional, thereby exhibiting a wide range of form factors. We demonstrate Fibercuit by showcasing a set of examples, including a custom dice, flex cables, custom end-stop switches, electromagnetic coils, LED earrings and a circuit in the form of kirigami crane.

Created by:

Zeyu Yan*, Anup Sathya*, Sahra Yusuf, Jyh-Ming Lien, Huaishu Peng

Publications:

ACM UIST 2022 | DOI PDF

ACM UIST 2022 DEMO | DOI PDF

Awards:

UIST 2022 Best Demo Award

Core77 2023 Design Awards Student Notable

News:

Hackster.io |Hackaday |All3DP |Sparkfun

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