Have I solved the Minimig production problem?

[HenryCase]

I read Crom00's thread about Minimig manufacturing with interest, but it seems we are not having much luck with the factory produced route. Individual builders are doing what they can, but there is a limit to the quantity of completed boards they can make. I believe I have worked out a third solution to the issue.

The solution is home fabrication. The Fab@Home project is the one currently closest to our needs:
http://fabathome.org/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page
The Fab@Home project is open source, and according to this Make article, http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2007/12/open_source_hardware_gift.html, prices range from $60-$3000+ USD, which is certainly reasonable enough.

Only thing is, I don't know how good the devices are at soldering. According to this link, http://fabathome.org/wiki/index.php?title=Fab%40Home:Materials, the Fab@Home family of devices can work with solder, silver-filled silicone, circuitwriter conductive ink and solder it-silver bearing solder paste, all of which conduct electricity.

Also worth reading the information found here:
http://fabathome.org/wiki/index.php?title=Fab%40Home:Support#What_materials_can_be_used_with_a_Model_1.3F
"The  1-Syringe Tool of a Model 1 is designed to work with almost any kind of liquid or paste that you can imagine dispensing from a syringe."

However, this information doesn't really show us how well a Fab@Home device would do in creating a usable Minimig, especially considering the difficulty of soldering SMT components. Therefore, I propose the following: if enough people think there might be some merit in my idea, I will try to contact someone who already has a Fab@Home device, send them a SMT component and see if they will test the accuracy of the soldering possible.

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

[Crom00]

I've read this thread on the Fab@home. It's really only usefull for an experimental tinkering/ hobby capacity.

Have you looked at the build quality? It's more effective to send 3d objects out to service bureaus. The reolution is much better and they will often troubleshoot the files and notify you of any issues.

Alothough very cool with LOTS of potential, I think it will take many more generations od development to achieve general use.

Think of the evolution from dot matrix to desktop color laser printers. That took, what... 25 years or so?

Just my 2 cents.

[ChaosLord]

Nope.

[HenryCase]

@Crom00
I agree that the build quality doesn't look perfect. However, it might still be good enough, which is why I thought it would be worth investigating further.

Take a look at this image for example:
http://fabathome.org/wiki/index.php?title=Image:Conductive_Traces1.jpg
There is some unevenness shown in that picture, but ask yourself whether a human hand could do a better job? For most of us I would say no. Yet a human hand can be used with a soldering iron to assemble a Minimig.

Crom00, I would just like to say that I hope you continue your search for a factory that can produce Minimigs for us. Think of this as a possible backup plan.

@ChaosLord
Pourquoi?

[Ferry]

@HenryCase

I don't thing that would work. I've kept an eye on that Fab@Home project for some time, but AFAICS it is useful only for 3D or thick 2D modelling, not for such a delicate work like soldering surface-mounted components onto a board, or drawing thin conductive tracks on a PCB, not to talk about doing the PCB itself including tracks...

Saluditos,

Ferrán.