Advantages of Fused Deposition Modeling for Making Electrically Conductive Plastic Patterns

There are many applications where electrically conductive plastic patterns are needed. The most usual way to make electrically conductive patterns is coating a plastic part by a thin layer of metal. It´s well known the different procedures for metalizing plastic parts but most of them aim to obtain either aesthetic or functional metallic coating with high level of adherence, finishing and electrical conductivity if necessary. This aim requires complex process and time expense, however in the present research work only electrical conductivity is needed. This particular requirement allows to develop a simplified process of coating adapted to a specific target: electroforming starting from rapid prototyping (RP) metalized parts. Additive technologies based on extrusion such as Fused Deposition Modeling(FDM) provide patterns or prototypes suitable to be metalized by electroless plating and to be used as patterns for making electroforming. A different behavior of ABS FDM parts has been found in terms of metalizing procedure. This paper is focused on the proposed simplified method of electroless plating for obtaining patterns with high level of electrical conductivity and reproducibility of original RP plastic part.