Like most of us, [Arnov] used a spare coffee mug to hold pens on his desk. But there has to be a better way, right? Surely if you build a better mouse trap… or, in this case, a pen holder. He’d be the first to admit that he might have gotten a little carried away, but the result is an attractive pen holder made from PCB material, one of which is actually an active circuit board.
The pen holder has some power management, as there’s a rechargeable battery that allows it to charge devices such as a smartphone or an embedded board. The power is also available for LEDs in the pen holder. The PCBs are bound together with 3D printed brackets.
The non-functioning PCBs still have patterns etched to make them more interesting looking. This is one of those things that isn’t technically a big deal, but we really liked the look of it, which was quite professional. We’ve seen PCBs used as enclosures before, but making the pattern and improving light transmission by removing the solder mask were nice touches.
If you don’t like the idea of making enclosures from PCB material, don’t forget they can form other components, as well. Clever arrangements can build resistors, capacitors, and inductors not to mention exotic transmission line elements.
In the first minute of the video he explains the active circuit supplies USB power in addition to the LED lighting.
I stopped watching at that point as that was not explained in the blog.
Sorry, I reread, and it does explain that.
Pass the crow please.
Love it. Great idea. I think on mine I will put on a voltage meter and cooling fan and maybe just maybe remote control.
I’d make it an active USB hub. Maybe a full blown USB-C dock.
I use regular can openers to hack empty coke and beer cans into pen holders.
Ive done that too but with soup cans, which I hang on the back shelf of my bench. And another one to sling solder into.