Make:

• HOW TO - Make fake barf!
• HOW TO - Make a USB remote control receiver
• How-to: Cast concrete planters using packing inserts
• DIY: UV Light Box
• The van that thought out loud
• DIY Automatic ball launcher for dogs made from an old scanner

How hard would this modification be to do to a standard inkjet printer? It sounds as if it might be possible that all one would need is to buy a prepackaged ink cartridge with these chemicals. If that is all that is required, it'd be a huge hit.

I would just be happy with a printer that could print acid resist onto a blank PCB for etching circuit boards.

http://www.iop.org/EJ/abstract/0960-1317/17/5/017
there's the official scientific journal they published their findings in...

http://www.bugmenot.com/view/www.iop.org
and there's your way to read it.

"were successfully formed using a standard office ink-jet thermal-head printer."

Shouldn't you just be able to get some silver nitrate and fill an empty cartridge slot (provided not LEXMARK :) ), and the black slot with vitamin C?

I am so tempted to try it (if I can find a spare printer) I hope someone does.

So I've been tinkering with this, just using the chemicals and Q-tips to put it on paper. The conductivity is horrendously low so far (~300K ohms/cm) but I haven't adjusted the pH of the solutions. My question is how do I do that? Ascorbic acid is, um...acidic, and I need to adjust to pH 7.2 and the silver nitrate to 6.5. Any ideas, anyone?

If you need to raise the pH, try a solution of baking soda.

To change the conductivity could you not just use different chemical solutions? You used to be able to get hold of this PCB repair fluid I think it was called called elecolyt. I think it was based on silver but maybe a little bit of something like that in with your fluid might improve conductivity.

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