Hyderabad: Circuits made easy with electrical painting

"Remember that what you create doesn't need to look like a circuit diagram. Electric Paint is great for creating graphical circuits that can tell both an electrical and visual story," says Challa Tineshwar Reddy, Co-founder of Maya labs

The Hyderabad-based start-up Maya labs came up with a unique conductive paint named 'Enk conductive paint' which allows you to paint your own electric circuits.

Hyderabad: Conductive paint, as the name suggests, is a form of paint which is infused with a conductive material, to enable electrical conduction which works like any other water-based paint, except it, conducts electricity.

The paint uses non-metallic eco-friendly materials such as carbon and abundantly available resources that have a very low impact on the environment and society. Our active field of research is carbon-based electrostatic coatings, paints and alternative battery technologies.

Speaking about his paint Challa Tineshwar Reddy, Co-founder of Maya Labs which is an R&D firm from Dilsukhnagar shared, " My brother and I are electrical engineers by profession, the idea of the paint first came to my brother who made a prototype model in his college project. It took us almost six years to come up with the final product. The paint can hold up to 2,000 watts. Which is sufficient enough to power 90 percent of your home items."

Electric Paint is a non-toxic electrically conductive material, which is as simple to use as poster paint, and dries in under 15 to 20 minutes to become conductive. It contains no metals, solvents or irritants, and can be screen printed, sprayed or brushed.

"The paint being a conductor, it has an insulating epoxy resistive coat like the ones in copper wires which makes the paint shockproof. The paint is available on shopping sites for around Rs 700 for a 10 ml bottle. The only problem currently we are facing is to have proper connectivity between the wire and the paint. We are coming up with different prototypes to tackle the problem," he adds further.

The paint can be used on almost any surface including paper, plastic, wood, cardboard, and glass. The amount of current it carries depends on the thickness of the lines.