Gold Leaf Circuit Board

February 13, 2012 by Mike Szczys 23 Comments

Ah, the glitter of gold… or fake gold, we’re not really sure. But [Mike Hogan] and [PJ Santoro] have been working with faux gold leaf as a conductor on circuit boards. The device you see above is mounted on metal-covered paper substrate and it really works.

They started by applying spray adhesive to heavy paper to make the gold-clad they needed. This was cut down into hexagons in homage to their hackerspace, Hive76 in Philadelphia. From there the shape of the microcontroller (an MSP430 G2211 in this case) to prevent shorts under the chip. The leads were flattened to interface well with the gold contacts, and a hobby knife was used to score the traces. Some careful soldering made up the final connections, and they were in business.

Oh, wait; chip on board but nothing on chip. They forgot to program it first! Since there’s no header they needed an easy way to interface with the board. The clever guys used the power of magnets to hold alligator clips in place. See how they did that in the demo video after the break.

They’re also working on some boards that use conductive ink similar to this hack but we haven’t seen a write-up from these two about those experiments… yet.

Continue reading “Gold Leaf Circuit Board” →

Create PCBs In Just Minutes With This Awesome Spray Etching Machine

February 11, 2012 by Mike Nathan 39 Comments

pcb-sprayer

If you have ever produced your own PCBs at home, you know that it can be somewhat of a time consuming process. Spending 20 or so minutes manually agitating a board is a drag, and while aquarium bubbler setups improve the process, they are far from ideal. [Christian Reed] knew that if he really wanted to streamline his PCB production he had to emulate the big boys and build a PCB sprayer of his own.

His spray etcher is contained in a custom acrylic case built mostly of scraps from previous projects. It contains two compartments – one for spraying etchant on the PCBs, and another for rinsing the finished work. The system is impressive to say the least, featuring a maze of tubes and piping which allow him to etch boards and manage his chemicals with ease.

[Christian] says that although the parts list might seem daunting at first, it really is pretty easy to assemble the device. Seeing as he can etch and wash a board in about two minutes flat, we think that any amount of effort would be worth the results.

[Christian] points out that he was unable to find a guide for building this type of PCB sprayer anywhere online, so he documented the process in painstaking detail in order to make it as easy as possible to replicate his work. Be sure to check out the video below to see his etch tank in action – we’re pretty sure it will have you itching to build one this weekend.

Continue reading “Create PCBs In Just Minutes With This Awesome Spray Etching Machine” →

NES Controller Uses Capacitive Touch Instead Of Buttons

January 19, 2012 by Mike Szczys 29 Comments

Here’s one way to really keep the component count low. [David] developed an NES controller that doesn’t use any buttons. The copper clad has been milled to provide a pad which registers a button push based on capacitance. The board has a SIL header at the top, making it easy to plug into the Arduino board that reads the inputs.

[David] had trouble getting the Arduino pin read functions to respond fast enough for he NES console’s expectations. He ended up using commands to access the ATmega’s peripherals directly in order to achieve the target timing. Speaking of, he did his own sniffing of the communication scheme using a logic analyzer. The results of that work, as well as the board files and code are available at the site linked above. And there’s a demo of the controller used to play Super Mario Bros. in the clip after the break.

This is actually a tangential project using a PCB mill which he’s developing through Kickstarter. This certainly shows that the mills works as designed. Continue reading “NES Controller Uses Capacitive Touch Instead Of Buttons” →

A Little Simon Clone Named [Nomis]

January 6, 2012 by Jeremy Cook 3 Comments

[Chris] has been hard at work building his own version of Simon called [Nomis]. Although [HAD] has featured an ATiny Simon clone before, the article does an excellent job explaining how the system works.

The ATTiny85 is used to control this game, which, for now is laid out on a simple breadboard. A PCB version of this game has been ordered from [Seeed], so be sure to check back to see the results of this forthcoming upgrade. It’s really cool that this kind of small scale manufacturing is available to the masses.

A parts list is provided as well as a code overview and schematic. To see it in action, check out the video after the break. There’s an explanation at the beginning, but skip to 1:55 if you’d rather just see the machine in action. The game can reportedly run until a 100 “move” limit is reached. This was arbitrary, but it should be enough for most people! Continue reading “A Little Simon Clone Named [Nomis]” →

Simple PCB Vise

December 12, 2011 by Mike Szczys 25 Comments

This one almost got relegated to a links post, but [Ken’s] simple PCB vise (PDF) is just so useful we had to give it a standalone feature. It works so well because he made every design feature count.

For instance, the groove the holds the PCB (almost impossible to see here but look at the diagrams in the PDF linked above) is cut with a dovetail bit, rather than just being a square rabbit. The clamping force is provided by that blue rubber band which simply hooks on a metal shelf peg on each side of the clamping plates. Those plates are machined out of polyethylene and slide nicely along the two nylon rods which keep them aligned. There’s really nothing to break or wear out here, except the rubber band with is easily replaceable. The rubber feet keep it from sliding across the bench as you work.

This is great for soldering, and would go right along with those diy smd parts clamps you made. It’s also a great way to hold onto your prototype boards when you’re working out the firmware.

Etching Your Own PCBs

November 25, 2011 by Mike Szczys 34 Comments

When [Adr1an] wrote in to share a link to his PCB etching tutorial he mentioned that he knew we had already covered a ton of these guides. He’s absolutely right, not only have we featured a great number of them, but we also wrote our own quite a while ago. But that doesn’t mean we ignore them when they come in on the tips line. In fact, we read all of them that have something to offer and are pleased to feature the ones that are well presented… like this one!

[Adr1an] went all out with his writeup. He not only covers all of the elements that go into this, but discusses where to purchase them and his thoughts on how he arrived at the choice. He’s using the toner transfer method and prefers Brother branded toner for its coverage and resistance to over-etching. He prints on HP Everday Photopaper, then uses a laminator to transfer to the copper clad board. For this guide he used 2oz copper but prefers 1oz copper as it etches faster. His etchant of choice is Ferric Chloride, which can be ordered as a dry powder. He uses the direct etch method of loading etchant into a sponge an applying that to the board.

The board he makes in the guide looks great, and it only took him 28 minutes!

Gridrunner: A Custom Part For Measuring In Eagle CAD

November 20, 2011 by Mike Szczys 21 Comments

[Koogar] came up with a useful tool for checking the measurements of your layouts in Eagle CAD. He calls it the Gridrunner; a custom part that adds a 200mm ruler to your design. Tick marks are in 1/10th of a millimeter increments for great accuracy when used with the zoom feature of Eagle. Once you’ve got the layout just right, delete the ruler from your design and export it for fabrication. [Koogar] does mention that the beta version of Eagle 6 has a new measuring tool, but he still thinks the Gridrunner offers some things that the built-in tool doesn’t. See just how handy it is in the video after the break. The measuring starts about 1:40 into it.

We found it interesting that [Koogar] is using Eagle for quite a bit more than PCB design. We’ve used it for laying out a drilling template for face plates before, but he’s going far beyond that. He uses the library editor to recreate the parts of his CNC machine which he says are then really easy to align. From there, he exports the CAM files for mounting brackets. Do you use Eagle for something other than PCB design? Let us know about it by leaving a comment. Continue reading “Gridrunner: A Custom Part For Measuring In Eagle CAD” →