The PCB business card has long been a staple amongst the freelance EE set. It’s a way to show potential clients that you can do the job, as well as leave a great first impression. Some are simple blinkenlights devices, others have contact information on USB storage. We reckon that [Seamus] has really hit it out of the park with this one, though.
That’s right- this business card riffs on the classic Magic 8-ball toy. Ask a question, shake the card, and it’ll light an LED with the corresponding answer to your query. Use it as a desk toy, or break deadlocks in meetings by looking to the card for the correct course of action.
It’s a very tasteful build, showing off [Seamus]’s minimalist chops – consisting of just a decade counter, a tilt sensor, and some LEDs. When the card is shaken, the tilt sensor outputs a series of pulses to the clock line of the decade counter, whose outputs are the 8 LEDs. When the tilt sensor settles, it lands on the final answer.
We think it’s a great card, which shows off both fundamental technical skills as well as a certain flair and creativity which can be key to landing exciting projects. It doesn’t hurt that it’s good fun, to boot. For another take on the Magic 8-ball, check out this build that can give you a Yes/No answer on demand.
Wow, it really is magic. The LED lights up without any parts being fitted to the board.
… with free energy too!
Nice idea, and I like the efforts of keeping the per-card cost as low as possible. Sorry for taking back your .eu domain, I did not choose these nitwits.
Ah, the good old CD4017.
My favorite chip when I was a kid.
I used it for everything. Chasing lights, Larsen scanners, frequency dividers, egg timers, traffic lights, fire simulation, etc.
Not really a pratical thing. It’s too big to put in a wallet or card holder. The people who get this card will throw it away or put it somewhere they will never find it again.
The image on Hack a day (with photoshopped LED) is a whole stack of bare PCB’s, a single card should fit.
Please show us your first PCB job, Trevor. Please do!
I think everyone who has seen the card in action will remember the face, place and possibly name of the card holder
Great project, well done.
If I got one of these, it’d earn a place on my desk as a conversation item.
linked page doesn’t work in opera, chrome worked for me
works fine in opera on mac
Testing on Opera for Windows. Works fine.
Horrible site design, IMO, but it works.
Liked the way the battery holder is solved, clever solution
Link has a coin miner
Whats wrong with this link: http://missingspace.eu/business-card