Transparent conductive paint or coating

pstjmack

Serf
Does anyone know of a transparent conductive paint or coating for modelling? I know there are black graphite paints, etc., but I'm looking for something truly transparent. Spray would do fine as well as liquid paint.
 
A quirky introduction post to be sure, but welcome! What purpose did you have in mind (presumably not circuits if a spray is acceptable) as most conductive coatings are targeted at the antistatic market. You could try contacting TBA in Rochdale as they do that kind of thing. Also I wonder if a model railway forum might be a better bet since there is more electricity involved day to day than in the wargaming arena!
 
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yeah.. erm.. I kind can't see how conductive paint CAN be transparent cause the various materials used for the conductive coating. The conductive stuff I use is mostly for repairing bad buttons (like TV remotes where they don't use a proper button but a bit of rubber with a conductive paint coating to work as the contact point.. very cheap poor method but it works for it's job, though when you put alot of pressure down along with minor rubbing which happens due to that fact that rubber isn't solid and people start to push down harder when they start to rub, which rubs even more) but... to be truly transparent? not much call for it.

for the train side, I would say it's mostly wired. far more trustworthy then painted.
 
Eric said:
A quirky introduction post to be sure, but welcome! What purpose did you have in mind (presumably not circuits if a spray is acceptable) as most conductive coatings are targeted at the antistatic market. You could try contacting TBA in Rochdale as they do that kind of thing. Also I wonder if a model railway forum might be a better bet since there is more electricity involved day to day than in the wargaming arena!
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True, thanks - looked here because the first mention I found in a thread was re. WH40K
 
I've seen more modern (generally plastic) 40K minis with LED illumination hacked into them, although I think in general that's done with the very small grain of sand type LEDs on enamelled wires - you can by those fairly cheaply these days either from model railway suppliers or even from Amazon. I assume they either glue the wires on the outside and blend them in or drill holes through to the weapon/eyes/whatever they want illuminating and run the cable that way. If you are trying to wire something up I would imagine it would be much more successful than trying to lay down a conductive track of transparent paint as the wires really are teeny.

As Manic mentioned there are conductive paints for circuit repair, for instance: https://uk.farnell.com/c/chemicals-adhesives/paints-coatings?coating-type=conductive but I doubt many of those are transparent.

I did just look and found a couple of options that as I suspected from some past work would be in the Anti-Static market: https://www.tbaps.com/products/coatings/conductive-transparent-graphene-hybrid-paint.html and https://hollandshielding.com/en/conductive-translucent-paint how successful either might be if you want a proper circuit I don't know, they are really just aimed at avoiding a static buildup on things like the acrylic on lights in environments where there is an explosive risk. I often find these companies are quite friendly when you get in touch however so probably worth an email explaining what you've got in mind - still curious myself to be honest!
 
if you don't give a damn about waste of power and the heat issues, inductive LEDs are pretty nice and getting pretty small.. but Inductive power (which some
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mobile phone companies use is very bad for power as you loss about 30% + due to the transfer (at a minimum, so that's like 30p in the £1 just thrown away) and then you have the problem of you can't just dump electricity. It needs to go someplace, in main place is as heat which is why if you leave a
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mobile phone on an inductive coil for some time, like over night, not only does that damage the whole system but you will probably notice some heat on the phone case. It can cause fires but that would probably be 10 + before you really need to worry but at the same time, you are heating up a metal coil right next to a fairly dense power storage cell.. that's rubbish. due to the waste of power and the heat offput it is not very environmentally friendly if that's your cup of tea. in fact, the raise in electrical products and there heat is one of the bigger problems to the environment for years.. and for some reason, more and more idiots think it's better to make Everything electric an ignore all the emissions like heat.. sigh

Inductive LEDs are great for some projects which you aren't gonna be having turned on for a long time and where wires/battery can't be easily located. I did a quick experiment (no photos cause it wasn't that visual really) for making inductive LED torches which when you place the torch or Bonfire mini onto a dungeon tile which has the coil under it, it would light up. worked well enough but the amount of coils needed and the amount of power it would then waste made it a bit stupid for it's need. Like a glow in the dark gaming die.. you aren't really gonna be playing when it's dark enough for it to be worth the effort.
 
Eric said:
I've seen more modern (generally plastic) 40K minis with LED illumination hacked into them, although I think in general that's done with the very small grain of sand type LEDs on enamelled wires - you can by those fairly cheaply these days either from model railway suppliers or even from Amazon. I assume they either glue the wires on the outside and blend them in or drill holes through to the weapon/eyes/whatever they want illuminating and run the cable that way. If you are trying to wire something up I would imagine it would be much more successful than trying to lay down a conductive track of transparent paint as the wires really are teeny.

As Manic mentioned there are conductive paints for circuit repair, for instance: https://uk.farnell.com/c/chemicals-adhesives/paints-coatings?coating-type=conductive but I doubt many of those are transparent.

I did just look and found a couple of options that as I suspected from some past work would be in the Anti-Static market: https://www.tbaps.com/products/coatings/conductive-transparent-graphene-hybrid-paint.html and https://hollandshielding.com/en/conductive-translucent-paint how successful either might be if you want a proper circuit I don't know, they are really just aimed at avoiding a static buildup on things like the acrylic on lights in environments where there is an explosive risk. I often find these companies are quite friendly when you get in touch however so probably worth an email explaining what you've got in mind - still curious myself to be honest!
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Thanks, looks like that's the likeliest solution
 
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