CircuitWriter Conductive Ink, silver-based, 4g

I used this to fix a broken trace on a membrane for a keyboard on a Gateway 2000 handbook. At first it seemed like it didn't work but here's some things you should know that should be on the directions but aren't: 1) There will be no conductivity until it is fully dry. 2) (in my case) it took hours to dry not "10 minutes" as the directions indicate. I let it dry over night and half way through the next day. 3) When applying you have to *BOTH* press in on the tip AND squeeze the shaft of the pen. The directions say to squeeze the pen and if you do it hard enough some will come out but really you also have to push in on the tip. The tip is essentially a valve which only opens up when you press in. It's also pretty easy to clean up if you make mistakes. In my case I accidentally bridged two traces that run parallel but aren't supposed to be connected. A tiny bit of isopro. alcohol and gentle scraping with a small Flathead screwdriver and the excess paint came right off.

First, let me recommend buying from Micro Tools. I ordered this Friday and Monday, I've got my order, rapid shipping and it arrived with a cool sample of Hand e Glove that I'll try next time I pop the hood of my car. Also, the product looked as if I'd picked it up at the store, complete with packaging. Now to my review thus far and why I'm rating this before the trace dries. Recently, an Evo 3D I bought as a hobby phone from a friend has been down for months because the lcd back light failed when I touched the screen while it was plugged into a rapid car charger. I cracked open the phone with my trusty torx screwdriver, and noticed what appears to be a burn spot on the circuits trace for the lcd to mother board. My options were as follows, buy a new lcd and muck with melting the working digitizer off and hoping that, when glued together, the new lcd fits with the digitizer (the front screen that allows your touch to make stuff happen), otherwise I'd have to muck with it all some more and melt/reapply the assembly. Orrrrr, I could first try that which I'm doing right now. It appears that a portion of the flex cable has an arc burn on it, the fact that the lcd is showing things but not lighting up indicates to me that the lcd is functional, given that the portion of the flex cable that's burnt marred a few traces, seemingly, in the middle of the cable, the way I figure it, one just has to get connectivity again. However, conventional soldering is not possible for a few reasons. 1. The heat involved and the size of the gun. This is a thin plastic circuit that's delicate, saying it was possible to get the gun optimally positioned, it'd still run the risk of doing further damage on both the solder side and also the guns side. 2. The precision required. No matter how fine the tip of the gun, or how fine the solder, the equipment is far too bulky to draw a mm thick line. So, those being the main concerns, I did research, given that I'm fond of silver solder due to its conductivity values, I wanted something that allows me to take full advantage of its marvelous properties. While surfing the www's I saw what I felt was a good heatless solution, silver filled pens. I searched high and low but only found solutions good for heat syncing but not concentrated enough for circuit tracing, that's where Circuit Writer comes in, it has a high ratio of silver particles: solution, and according to the more knowledgeable reviews is just what the doctor ordered as a perfect substitute for the wonderful benefits of heated soldering. Initially, I was pensive about ordering it because of the price and also the idea that the applicator might be clumsy (I was thinking of the ball applicator of silver paint pens used for decorating, also, seeing some of these reviews that thought was reinforce) just got the pen today and was surprised that, indeed, the tip is very fine, and the pen is a lot bigger than I'd anticipated in a good way (lots of solution). I just applied the compound and, per directions, am letting it cure for 24 hours. I'm crossing my fingers that this resolves the issue, if it doesn't, at least I've got a useful tool for the future. I'd recommend this to anyone in a heartbeat for situations involving tight spaces and where soldering just isn't feasible. What I'd NOT recommend buying this for is soldering joints or components, definitely seems to be more for writing circuits, and not for strength and conductivity. I'll edit this part if I try it and it's acceptable, but would not want someone to purchase it thinking they'll get the same strength benefits as solid core silver, or good old rosin core lead as it is a compound and not a solid state.

You might as well use a piece of a plastic bag to connect points. Tried every way I could to get it to be conductive. drawing a line on a circuit board and letting it dry, drawing a line and baking it as directed to "cure it" I even tried to see if it was conductive little copper circle to little copper circle on a board with the copper on it. It may work for itty-bitty breaks on a drefroster on your back window, but as for it being some way of conducting from point A to B forget it. I cannot believe I wasted my money, could have bought 3 spools of 22 gauge wire for less @ Radio Shack for the price of basically nothing. Just a bag of "magic beans" when it comes to living up to description.

I bought this for repairing the resistor grid on my rear defroster. There was about a 1mm gap that was scratched off ever since I had the car. The problem is, this stuff needs to "cure". After some tests in my lab at work, I suspect the polymer binder shrinks and pulls the silver particles closer together and thus becomes conductive. In order to make it cure, it has to get pretty warm which is not something easily possible on a car window without risking cracking the glass. Something like 50-60 degrees celsius is what it requires. At room temperature, it seems like it doesn't cure at all. I left it for several days on two copper traces about 2mm apart and it never cured until I held a candle underneath it. The resistance of this painted junction was megaohms until it got warm and then went down to approximately 4 to 8 ohms depending on how thick I made it. Still could be a useful product for some applications.

I bought a Corsair K57 keyboard for my wife. My cat barfed on it three weeks after I bought it for her. The cat barf was enough to corrode the flimsy, uncoated traces on the flex ribbon underneath the keyboard membranes. It wasn't the membrane press parts that corroded; it was the trace wires connecting to the press pads that corroded, but this product should handily work in either area. I used this pen to coat the corroded traces, and much to my surprise, it actually worked. The paint goes on about as thin as you can expect it to go on, so it will work with fine traces. It does not dry clumpy or leave a thick mound. It's very thin but dense, which is probably good. The paint is a shiny silver color. It's not the dark carbon color you see in other varieties. If you bridge connections you did not mean to bridge with this pen, you can use an exacto knife to scrape away the excess paint. The paint scrapes away fairly well and does not cause big chunks of the trace to break away when scraped. You can use a ~40W incandescent desk lamp to make the paint dry very quick rather than waiting for it to air dry over hours. I've never used the more expensive versions of this type of product. I paid ~$25 for this pen and I imagine the $45 versions aren't much better.

The good - it does what it says on the tin. You can indeed draw circuit connections, which makes some solder work easier. The not-so-good - it is very imprecise, and takes a long time to dry. The medium to carry the conductive material is very loose, so even with a fine tip on the pen, the most common output is a blob of material, and that can overlap more connectors than you might want, even with great care. Also, in order to secure a connection properly, you really need to be a bit agressive with the line drawn, and that doesn't help the accuracy issue. The pen notes it takes ten minutes to dry, but better plan on at least a couple hours, too, and then check the connections before moving ahead, as a second coating might be needed. But, it is a useful tool to have in the kit, within the limits and problems noted.

while replacing a light bulb in my microwave, I folded a ribbon cable from the control panel to the oven. Microwave/Oven combo is 20 yrs old and could not find a replacement panel. After reading/watching several "how to" sites/videos decided to give this pen a shot. My wife carefully scratched off the protective coating around the fold, exposing the breaks in the wires. Shook the pen vigorously for 10 minutes to ensure it was ready to flow. My wife actually put little dots/lines of silver goo about the size of the tip of a paper clip on each of the 14 traces in the cable. Then set up a blow dryer and let it dry for about a half hour. Then let it sit overnight. Re-assembled the microwave and it works! I don't expect much movement from the cable, so hopefully is a permanent repair. Will update my review if/when it quits working. As for the actual product, the pen was easy to use if you wanted thin little dabs of silver. We practiced on newspaper first since we would only get one shot. Keep pressure on the pen, and the stylus let out the ink when pressed down. If you wanted a wider line, you'd probably have to cut the tip. Good luck!

The conductivity of the "ink" is fine. The main issue with this pen is that there's no way you're going to just write on the surface of a circuit board like you would with ballpoint pen on paper. It's a paint pen more or less. There's a little ball or something in it like a spray paint can to mix it up. When you first take it out of the package you have to REALLY shake it to knock that mixer lose. Even after minutes of really shaking it to get the material mixed well, I had to about bend the pen in half with it pressed down on a piece of paper to get the ink flowing. The amount of pressure you have to apply with the pen while simultaneously squeezing the ink out makes it really difficult (for me at least) to just draw a line like you would assume you'd be able to. The best method I could come up with to be really exacting with where the ink went, was to hold it at a 45-degree angle pressed against something else, like the cap from a plastic bottle, and then squeeze out enough ink to then get a glob of it on the end of the pen and apply to the trace. Also, the viscosity of the liquid is similar to something like glitter glue than ink. There's not a lot of "flow" to it. I guess just put it in a paint mixer when you first get it and it might be more functional out of the gate. Be prepared to think you might be about to break it trying to get the ink out. Also, i'm not sure where the 10 minute drying time comes from. In a 73-ish F room, I gave it 40 minutes and when I tested it I pulled up a good bit of the work I just did. >:( Just give it like a full day unless you want to accidentally ruin the work you spent all that time on.

Work fine

Batalle muchisimo para poder sacar el liquido, literalmente tuve que casi doblarlo completamente

La tinta no es de muy buena calidad, las veces que la intente usar no me funciono para nada y muy rara vez funcionaba. No sirve

La tinta no sale continua, dura mucho el secado y no tiene conductividad. Por lo tanto mala calidad, no. Sirven.

Mal producto