Hobby Electronics, an ancient and foreboding tradition. Like modern day alchemists, days were spent inhaling lead, solder, while participants dare not talk to outsiders of their hobby, lest they ridicule and subjugate us.

Hobby electronics have thankfully come a long way. With home robotics kits, 3D Printing, Raspberry beginners PC’s and many other advanced starting points the electronics hobbyist has also experienced the rise of the nerd, the ‘Big Bang Theory’ effect. Having become a fairly mainstreams hobby, electronics tinkering has lost much of the stigma.

Included for your viewing pleasure is the one experiment from the earliest days that can still generate a wow reaction, the hand drawn working graphite circuit. First time viewers often react in this way to the Incredible Hand Drawn Machines. Also included is the modern take on a classic, nano silver conductive ink.

First popularized by Forest M. Mims in his book “Getting Started In Electronics” hand drawn graphite circuits have been until now the stage show experiment of electronics. Used as an education tool, always sure to capture students attention there is something fulfilling about being able to simply draw a working circuit. While graphite is a poor conductor of electricity it is far better than the paper it is drawn on. It will in fact conduct just enough power to allow a working circuit.

Mims wrote for many of the great names in electronics magazines world, including Popular Electronics, Radio Electronics, Modern Electronics and Scientific America. Chances are if you have ever put together a Radio Shack kit you have experienced Mims work. Famous for his hand drawn circuit diagrams and easy to understand style Mims contribution to home electronics has been monumental.

Fast forward 30 years since the original graphite circuit experiments, hand drawn circuits are as popular as ever but advancements have been few and far between. The highlight and exception is the silver ink nano particle pens. Able to lay down circuits with almost identical electronic properties to normal soldered circuits. Some stick on components are also available, resistors, capacitors and i/o, but more products are needed. An entire LED ball was created by hand drawing the circuit by hand.

Materials researchers led by Jennifer Lewis and Jennfer Bernhard at the University of Illinois, have developed a highly conductive silver ink. Analisa Russo, a graduate student in the research group shows exactly how to make this amazing ink

“Pen-based printing allows one to construct electronic devices ‘on-the-fly,’ ” said Lewis, the director of the Frederick Seitz Materials Research Laboratory at the U. of I. “This is an important step toward enabling desktop manufacturing (or personal fabrication) using very low cost, ubiquitous printing tools.”

“Pen-based printing allows one to construct electronic devices ‘on-the-fly,’ ” said Lewis, the director of the Frederick Seitz Materials Research Laboratory at the U. of I. “This is an important step toward enabling desktop manufacturing (or personal fabrication) using very low cost, ubiquitous printing tools.”

Conductive inks and nano particles have managed to keep a classic experiment alive, relevant and interesting. Always fun to watch, these are The Incredible Hand Drawn Machines.

Reference: Forest M Mims