Conductive Transfers – Printed stretchable electronics for smart textiles

Conductive Transfers brings their expertise in textile printing to develop printing technologies that enable circuits to be seamlessly integrated with fabrics thus avoiding the need for wires and many of the electronic components in garments.

Their core solutions are:

1. ElastaTrode – printed circuits for smart textiles, includes the newly developed 3D dry electrode. – see below
2. ElastaTherm – printed heaters that can be integrated into textiles, with application possibilities within automotive, outdoor clothing and medical.
3. ElastaTronic – printed circuits textiles with the capability to add surface mounted silicone chips on the fabric
4. ElastaSens – printed textile sensors such as capacitive, touch, stretch and pressure sensors
5. ElastaLink – printed circuit for connecting across garment seams

Conductive Transfers (CT) developed these patented printing technologies specifically for textiles, so these solutions are stretchable, washable and durable, making it ideal for use in various textile and apparel applications. The CT process are the foundations for functional textiles, it enables the developer to break down previous barriers within wearable & smart technologies to create new products.

The circuits are printed on a transfer sheet by adding layers of conductive inks and insulating layers. Once the circuit layers are printed, a final adhesive layer is added on top. This sheet is transferred onto textiles using heat and pressure ensuring a strong bond to the fabric. Finally, the transfer sheet is peeled away so no plastic substrate is left on the fabric resulting in a soft, stretchable fabric circuit. As the material stretches so does the transfer. Standard crimp connectors, snaps, magnetic connectors, even some conductive tapes can be attached to these smart textiles to attach hardware to them if needed. CT are working in the background on their own connector for use by innovators.

Services

Conductive Transfers can support clients throughout their product development phases. They understand the challenges of developing smart textiles solutions and can work closely with their clients to build an idea into a prototype and proof of concept with printed circuits. Prototypes enable clients to do testing, redesigning, gather interest and get investments for product developments.

Once prototypes are refined and finalised, Conductive Transfers can go into large scale production as required by the clients. This is a cost effective and scalable technology that can quickly be integrated with textiles or garments using existing textile processes.

If companies are keen to conduct the production themselves, Conductive Transfers can license their patented technology and know-how to interested parties through a technology transfer. They will provide all materials, equipment and training for staff both in the UK and overseas to produce high quality printed circuits.

Case Study

Conductive Transfers has developed prototypes and products for customers in the medical, health, automotive and apparel industries.

Latest has been their development and manufacturing of printed stretchable electrodes for Atlantic Therapeutic solution, INNOVO, a FDA, CE approved femtech smart textile product for treatment of Stress Urinary Incontinence (SUI).

As a result of the successful partnership between Atlantic Therapeutics and Conductive Transfers, Atlantic Therapeutics has now got an exclusive IP licence from Conductive Transfers for this application enabling them to expand their markets in UK and USA.

Why Conductive Transfers

The CT process is aimed at innovators and brands in all industries that want to create a functional textile which is cost effective and scalable. The method of translating ideas into smart textiles brings up many challenges, CT provides the missing link that helps create smart technologies via it’s printed circuits for textiles.

Over the years there has only been a handful of ways of creating an e-textile, for example if created using conductive yarns, threads, embroidery or printed directly onto the surface of the textile and other substrates. But scalability issues, cost and time have played a large part in many fabulous ideas and concepts falling by the wayside, for far too long there has been a brick wall within e-textiles which brands have struggled to get over. The CT process allows these brands to break down this wall and take their concepts through from prototype to production cost effectively, efficiently and in a fraction of the time.

Paul Brook, CEO, further explained that “CT have laid down the foundations for e-textiles allowing the designers to use their imagination and freedom to create commercial products that help people both medically and with their well being. It certainly fills the CT team with pride knowing that our process helps to positively affect people’s lives.”

More Information

Based in Barnsley, United Kingdom

• Experts in printed stretchable electronics for smart textiles and wearables using the CT patented conductive transfer process
• Certifications include CT are ISO9001 accredited, some of our customers have achieved CE and FDA approval for their products that incorporate the Conductive Transfer process.

For more information:
Contact: Paul Brook, Business Development, pbrook@iesensors.com
Website: https://www.conductivetransfers.com/

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Wire your Electronics with Textile Ribbons

A wide range of different conductive wires can be used in weaving tapes or ribbons. Most suitable however are the so-called Litz wires that are individually insulated thin twisted copper conductors. The wires are highly conductive and they preserve the flexibility of the textile ribbon. Litz wires are also robust against washing and wear and tear.

AMOHR has an electronically controlled machine configuration that enables an almost unrestricted design layout of wires.

STA ambassador Fraunhofer has developed a technique to bond electronic modules to such tapes. Also, various solutions exist to attach connectors to terminate the conductive tape.

Attaching Electronics utilizing Wire Breakouts

One of the interesting features of narrow fabric machinery is that you can make breakouts which expose the conductive wires at the surface of the ribbon and thereby enable the mounting of electronic modules on top of the ribbon at defined positions. A woven ribbon with embedded electronics is ideal to be sewing into the seams of trousers or jackets. An alternative is to iron tapes by adding hot melt glue directly onto a fabric or pass an elastic version through a tunnel in a garment. This is specifically interesting for applications that are used to monitor posture and body movements.

Contacting Wires can be Challenging

The advantage of using woven tapes versus printed electronics is that you can finalize all the electronics circuits before sewing the garment. However, contacting the thin wires in textile ribbons can require some labor intensive work or machinery made for this purpose. There is not yet a standardized industrial way to strip textile material and to make connections to the insulated wires in one single automatic process. AMOHR can guide you and connect you with partners who can build manufacturing tools for contacting ribbons in a high volume production

More about AMOHR Technische Textilien GmbH

AMOHR is based in Wuppertal, Germany, with a manufacturing site at Laa an der Thaya, Austria. AMOHR has a long record of working for a variety of worldwide customers and projects as well as many early-stage developments.

• Specialist in elastic and non-elastic conductive tapes and textile sensors
• Name of Product Brand: AMOTAPE®
• The conductors normally run inside the tape but can be programmed to come up to the surface at points where connection is made to electronics modules or a connector.
• The conductive tapes of various sizes can be delivered with integrated hot-melt adhesive making them easy to heat press or iron onto various substrates.
• Textile based humidity, elongation or pressure sensors are normally customer designs made for the specific end-use application; however based on years of experience AMOHR can develop such products with low risk.
• ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 Certificate
• Since 1998, AMOHR has been ISO 9001 certified and since 2003 it has been ISO 14001 certified to document good practices in environmental management

Read more about AMOHR on the home page https://amohr.com/en/

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