Designing a PCB Ornament

December 31, 2018 fustiniartwork, hackster.io, microcontroller, PCB ArtLeave a comment

Liz from Blitz City DIY wrote about the process of designing a PCB ornament:

Designing a PCB Ornament

As the holidays approached this year, I felt a need to create a DIY gift for my family and friends. I struggled at first to find a medium. Should I 3D print something? Should I knit? But then it hit me: everyone loves blinky LEDs and I want to keep getting better at PCB design. I’ll do a PCB ornament!

If you don’t have a traditional electronics background PCB design can seem scary, overwhelming and something that’s meant for more experienced people that have “real skills”. If you start simple and slowly add-in new methods and design features to your boards you’ll soon realize it isn’t so scary and that much like everything else in life it just takes practice and patience to learn. And once you have your first project on a custom PCB instead of a piece of perf board you’ll be hooked.

All the Badges of DEF CON 26 (vol 4)

September 6, 2018September 5, 2018 fustinibadgelife, defcon, PCB ArtLeave a comment

From a cockroach filled with LEDs, to an impressively dense 576 RGB LED display, and even a hunk of carpet, our final installment of the unofficial hardware badges at DEF CON 26 are beyond impressive. I tried to see every badge and speak to every badge maker this year. So far we’ve covered a ton…

via All the Badges of DEF CON 26 (vol 4) — Hackaday

Snowy Owl PCB artwork

August 22, 2018August 23, 2018 fustiniartwork, PCB Art, tindieLeave a comment

Snowy Owl

Look at it. This snowy owl is so cute. You can choose add custom text or not.

When you choose the option of custom text, you can customize the snowy owl as follows.

Add a name or nick name (less than 16 letters) like “Mary” or “James”

Add a short message (less than 18 letters) such as “Happy Birthday!” or “Merry Christmas!”

Owl is amazing. It has super eyesight at night. Its feather structure makes its flight silent. It can turn around its head backwards.

I’d like something to be associated with “snow” and “north”. That is why I think of the snowy owl.

Kicad: Designing With Complex Shapes

July 9, 2018July 10, 2018 fustiniandrew sowa, artwork, crowd supply, design, EDA, kicad, PCB Art, portland, teardownLeave a comment

KiCad presentation by Andrew Sowa at Teardown 2018:

Kicad: Designing With Complex Shapes

While most PCBs can be simple rectangles, sometimes the design requires more complex geometry. EDA tools don’t always make this simple, so we will go over a few KiCad tips to make it easier. In this talk you will learn how to import unique board shapes from Fusion 360, create arbitrary fill zones using images, and embed high-frequency RF filters. We will use multiple software packages to enhance KiCad’s performance beyond its obvious use.

PCB projects with awesome artwork

March 2, 2018March 3, 2018 fustiniartwork, hackaday, hackchat, PCB Art, pcb artwork, PCB Painting1 Comment

Here’s a list of some project with great PCB artwork:

Pure art boards

Functional boards with awesome art/layouts

Making Braille Signs out of PCBs

November 2, 2017November 1, 2017 fustiniassistive technology, braille, hackaday, PCB ArtLeave a comment

From John Baichtal on Hackaday:

Making Braille Signs out of PCBs

[jg] recently passed some damaged Braille signs and took on the challenge of repairing them. Informed by his recent work on PCB lapel pins, [jg] immediately thought of using circuit boards for this project. He’d noticed that round solder pads made for uniform hills of solder, and this reminded him of the bumps in Braille.

http://jg.sn.sg/braille/

He began by reading up on the standards of the Braille Authority of North America, which stipulates a dot height of 0.6mm. He loaded up the PharmaBraille font system and laid it out the dots in photoshop, then and imported it into KiCad and laid out the boards. When the PCBs had arrived from OSH Park, [jg] soldering up the pads (lead free, but of course) to see if he could get the hills to 0.6mm. He’s experimenting with different methods of melting the solder to try to get more even results

Building a PCB lapel

July 5, 2017July 6, 2017 fustiniart, artwork, fashion, kicad, PCB ArtLeave a comment

JinGen Lim created this beautiful project:

Building a PCB lapel

I had little experience with fabric, but building a lapel out of PCB seemed like something that might just work. PCBs are typically built with extremely high tolerances for its copper and mask layers and still acceptably accurate for the silkscreen.

http://jg.sn.sg/lapel/

PCB Artwork in 2017

June 26, 2017June 27, 2017 fustiniart, artwork, design, hackaday, hackaday.io, PCB Art, PCB PaintingLeave a comment

Brian Benchoff wrote on Hackaday about the amazing PCB artwork that he’s seen so far in 2017:

Hackaday Links: June 11, 2017

PCB art is getting better and better every year. This year, though, is knocking it out of the park. In March, Andrew Sowa turned me into money.

More recently, Trammell Hudson has explored the layers of OSH Park soldermask and silk to create a masterpiece.

Now, we’re moving up to full-blown art. Blake Ramsdell worked with OSH Park to create a full panel of art in gold, fiberglass, soldermask, and silkscreen. It’s 22×16 inches, and it’s fantastic.

David I. Herman just created a Facebook group for PCB paintings.

PCB Painting Art Nouveau

February 12, 2017 fustiniart, hackaday, PCB Art, PCB PaintingLeave a comment

PCB Painting Art Nouveau

Larger 4 inch by 6 inch #PCBPainting by @David I. Herman came out better than we expected! Inspired by Alphonse Mucha’s style of Art Nouveau era art and design.