Repair and Prototype Tools

Conductive ink pens are specialized writing tools designed to draw circuits and create electrical connections on various surfaces. The ink used in these pens contains conductive materials (e.g. silver), which allow it to conduct electricity. Here's what a conductive pen can do: Circuit Prototyping: Conductive pens are often used for rapid prototyping of electronic circuits. Instead of traditional methods like soldering, engineers can draw circuit traces directly onto a PCB using the conductive pen. Repairs: These pens are useful for repairing damaged or broken circuit traces on electronic devices or printed circuit boards (PCBs). By drawing a new conductive trace with the pen, one can restore the electrical connection without requiring complex rework. Low-voltage Electronics: Conductive pens are suitable for low-voltage applications, such as wearable electronics, simple sensors, touch-sensitive interfaces, and other electronic projects that don't involve high power or high-frequency signals. CircuitWorks Repair/ Cleaning Products Learn more in our Blog Follow our Linkedin

CircuitWorks® flux pens are available with a variety of fluxes to fit your specific shop requirements, including: no-clean, high temperature no-clean for lead-free soldering, rosin, and water soluble. Flux pens are an excellent way to dispense flux for benchtop soldering. You just hold the pen vertically and briefly depress the tip to start the liquid flow. This will saturate the tip of the pen with flux. Draw flux on the area to be soldered. Gently press the tip again when more flux is needed to keep the tip damp with flux.

A common method of repairing a broken trace is to solder on a jumper, which is basically a wire bypass around the broken trace. This can be time-consuming and visually unappealing. Chemtronics offers CircuitWorks® Conductive Pens, which contain a highly conductive material like silver or nickel suspended in a liquid polymer. These pens allow you to literally redraw the trace.

Chemtronics offers CircuitWorks Overcoat Pens in a variety of colors to match the PCB resist. Overcoat pens are basically acrylic conformal coating in convenient packaging, and the clear version can be used to coat small areas. Simply press down the pen tip and squeeze the barrel to dispense the coating material. 

Chemtronics offers the CircuitWorks® Conformal Coating Remover Pen that allows you to remove a tight area of coating around a repair area without affecting the rest of the PCB. You first saturate the tip by tapping it lightly on a surface, which opens the valve and releases solvent. Holding the tip down may oversaturate it, which could lead to solvent flowing into unintended areas.

2-part conductive epoxy is a great solution for making solderless electronic connections. This type of epoxy contains conductive material, so when cured, it forms a very strong and highly conductive bond, similar to a solder joint. Chemtronics offers two options: CircuitWorks® Conductive Epoxy, which cures in 10 minutes, and CircuitWorks® 60 Minute Conductive Epoxy, which provides more time to work. Both Epoxies have A and B components that need to be thoroughly mixed before the curing process will begin. Once mixed, you use the included plastic pick to apply to epoxy to the connection. If movement is possible during the curing process, you will need to tape down or otherwise secure the wires or components.

In a production or repair environment where the flux is specified and can’t be changed, or when an aqueous flux is needed, you can add your own flux to this type of braid. Unfluxed wick will not remove solder unless flux is added. Different types of fluxes are available in pen packaging, which is ideal for fluxing braid.

Printed circuit boards (PCB) come in a variety of colors, including green, blue, red, brown, and even purple. The most common is green, but that can vary by application, industry, and the age of the PCB. Fashions change over time, and so do common PCB colors. Today, green is the most common. The reason? Not for any significant performance difference. Arguable, some colors may be easier on the eyes when assembling, soldering and reworking electronics, or work better with inspection optics. In reality, the main reason is probably price. Whatever is most common color will generally have lower cost, because bareboard suppliers are running that color continuously. Any odd color will require a change-over, extra clean-up, and thus additional cost.