Kupros' Cu29 V2 Sold Out Before It Shipped — Copper Circuits on the Printer You Already Own

Key takeaways

Cu29 V2 has launched and the first batch is gone. Indiana-based Kupros released its second-generation all-metal conductive filament on 11 August; the 90 kg run is sold out, with first shipments due late August 2026.
It runs on printers you already own. Kupros says Cu29 is validated on FDM/FFF hardware from sub-$400 desktop machines to $250,000-plus industrial systems, with no sintering, plating, curing or chemical post-processing.
The bigger news is a patent-pending workflow aimed at embedded electronics, conformal antennas and integrated sensors — not just flat traces. Sensor test articles have gone to Oak Ridge National Laboratory for evaluation.
It is expensive, and not for bulk metal parts. Pricing runs from $450 for 100 g to $3,500 per kilogram, and the material is laid into polymer structures rather than printed as a standalone object.
The performance figures are company-stated. Kupros publishes a resistivity of 1.226 × 10⁻⁵ Ω·cm and reports testing at 12.5 kV and very high transient currents. Independent verification is outstanding.

Kupros, Inc. — a small company out of Loogootee, Indiana — has released Cu29 V2, the second generation of an all-metal conductive filament that prints on ordinary FDM machines. The launch, reported by 3DPrint.com on 11 August, came with a second announcement that matters more than the filament itself: a patent-pending workflow for printing genuinely embedded electronics on desktop hardware. The 90 kg launch run has already sold out — Kupros’ store now lists Cu29 as sold out and closed to online orders, with quotes handled directly for approved purchasers and first V2 shipments starting late August 2026.

Copper that comes off the bed already working

Conductive filament is not new, but what is on the market is almost entirely polymer-based: carbon- or metal-loaded plastic that conducts well enough for a capacitive touch pad and not much else. Cu29 is a different animal. Kupros states its conductive material contains no polymer binder, and that a printed conductor needs no sintering, plating, curing, chemical processing or binder removal. You print the trace, and the trace works.

That is the whole pitch. Additive electronics has historically meant six- and seven-figure machines built around silver inkjet chemistry; Kupros is aiming the same capability at a printer costing less than a decent monitor. The new patent-pending process pushes past traces into embedded circuits, conformal antennas, sensors, coils, EMI shielding and solderable interfaces, and Cu29-enabled sensor test articles have gone to Oak Ridge National Laboratory for evaluation — the first meaningful third-party check on any of this.

“If you can introduce conductive pathways and electronic components directly during a standard FDM/FFF workflow, the printer stops being only a mechanical manufacturing system,” founder and CEO Ian Ramsdell said. “It begins becoming an electronics manufacturing platform.”

The numbers — and the asterisk

Kupros publishes a resistivity of 1.226 × 10⁻⁵ Ω·cm for Cu29 V2, orders of magnitude better than polymer-filled conductive filaments. The company also reports testing the material at 12.5 kV, and says a supercapacitor bank discharged through a 1.75 mm sample exceeded the 300-amp measurement limit of its test meter without destroying the filament.

Those are striking figures, and they are all internal. Speaking to 3Dnatives, Ramsdell labelled the performance data preliminary, noting the team “kept blowing up power supplies” trying to reach destructive failure, and conceded that silver inks remain more conductive. Until ORNL or a comparable lab publishes, treat the numbers as manufacturer’s claims — which is how Kupros presents them.

A Navy paper and a serious customer list

The technology did not start in a garage. It came from US Navy scientist Harrison Holmes, whose proposal was named top paper of 2017 under the Office of Naval Research Design Innovation Award, then sat unused until Ramsdell — himself a Navy veteran — licensed it in 2021 through a Department of Defense startup studio.

It shows in the customer list. Kupros names NASA, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, KBR, two US Army DEVCOM centres, Los Alamos, Johns Hopkins APL and Purdue’s Center for In-Space Manufacturing among buyers and evaluators; several prepaid before the filament existed, and Cu29 took the 2026 TCT Materials Award in its first year of pilot availability. The defence and aerospace appeal is specific: fewer wiring harnesses, structural health sensing inside load-bearing parts, antennas that follow a fuselage curve instead of sitting on flat FR4. A space-grade variant, Cu29 Space, is in development to address tin whiskering — metallic filaments that can short adjacent traces, a mission-killer on hardware nobody can service.

What it costs, and what it is not

Cu29 V2 is priced at $450 for 100 g, $1,000 for 250 g, $1,850 for 500 g and $3,500 for 1 kg. That is not hobby money, and copper trading near record highs is not helping.

It is also not a filament for printing solid copper parts. Ramsdell says the team has printed only five or six layer heights in Z, mostly to test self-adhesion, and is “not trying to build in the third dimension currently.” The intended workflow is multi-material: structural plastic and Cu29 printed together, ideally on a dual-extruder or IDEX machine, so the electrical path is embedded as the part is built. Hardware requirements are modest — Kupros lists validated platforms from Sovol, Bambu Lab and industrial vendors, and told 3Dnatives it needs no printer modification beyond a steel hotend.

Why it matters

Multi-material printing has spent five years being mostly about colour. A conductive metal that survives real current and runs on a machine already on the bench is the more interesting version of that promise — the point where a printer stops making enclosures for electronics and starts making the electronics. Ninety kilograms is a tiny run, and the claims still need someone outside Loogootee to sign off on them. But the direction of travel is hard to miss.

FAQ

What printer do I need to run Cu29?

A standard FDM/FFF machine with a steel hotend. Kupros says Cu29 has been validated on hardware from sub-$400 desktop printers up to $250,000-plus industrial systems, naming Sovol and Bambu Lab among tested platforms. For embedded electronics you want dual-extruder or IDEX so plastic and conductor print in the same job.

Can I print a whole metal object out of Cu29?

No. Kupros has only printed around five or six layer heights in Z and says building in the third dimension is not the current goal. Cu29 is a conductor laid into or onto polymer parts, not a substitute for metal AM.

How is this different from the conductive filament I can already buy?

Existing conductive filaments are polymer-based and limited to low-voltage, low-current use. Kupros states Cu29’s conductive material contains no polymer binder, publishes a resistivity of 1.226 × 10⁻⁵ Ω·cm, and reports high-voltage and high-current testing well outside what polymer-filled filaments can handle.

When can I actually buy Cu29 V2?

Not immediately. The launch batch is sold out and online ordering is closed; Kupros directs buyers to request a quote as an approved purchaser, with first V2 shipments slated for late August 2026.

Sources: 3DPrint.com, 3Dnatives, Kupros Cu29 V2 product page, Kupros 3D Printed Electronics.

Kupros’ Cu29 V2 Sold Out Before It Shipped — Copper Circuits on the Printer You Already Own