$1 DIY Conductive Ink and Paint (Non Toxic, homemade, cheap!) – Makerboat.com

Turn fire into conductive ink and paint, then build electronic circuits, paper musical instruments and inputs for your Arduino boards!

Today you will learn how to make your own conductive ink to draw electronic circuits using the leftovers from your fireplace or BBQ! You can use this ink to draw circuits on paper and cardboard, learn about electronic circuits or play around with arduino boards like the Makey Makey to create paper musical instruments like pianos, digital drumsets, guitars, etc.

Conductive Ink is a great way to learn the basics of electronics. This a recipe that is non-toxic and extremely low cost. Comercial conductive inks cost around $10 to $15 for a small pen that may not last for much, specially if you want to draw large shapes or cover large surface areas.

This paint will just cost you cents to make using charcoil left from your fireplace or BBQ, a bit of black water paint and a bit of Elmer’s glue! That’s it!! The principle is that carbon dust is conductive so once you blend the charcoil from your fireplace and mix it with a bit of paint and glue you will have a paint that becomes conductive together with the carbon dust!

Now this is not as conductive as commercially available paints that use silver particles or industrial purified carbon, but it will be very useful to conduct very small currents, to turn on an LED or as inputs for Arduino boards. Please experiment with this and let’s find out how to make this paint much more conductive with other ready available, cheap materials. Please email us at info@makerboat.com or visit us at http://www.makerboat.com if you have any suggestions. Let’s create a Creative Commons, Open Source Conductive Paint!