Screaming LM386: An Audio Amplifier with PCB Art

February 20, 2020February 20, 2020 fustiniartwork, Audio, kicad, PCB ArtLeave a comment

Beautiful project from Frank Milburn on element14:

Screaming LM386: An Audio Amplifier with PCB Art

I decided to give PCB art a try and will be basing my attempt on methods described by Andrew Sowa. Andrew uses Adobe Illustrator for the art work and KiCad for the PCB design. I will also use KiCad but will use my trusty pre-subscription version of Photoshop for the artwork. Inkscape is another possibility. Andrew’s process is described in this video from which my work is derived. The detail behind many of the steps won’t be described in this post – watch the video for that.

The goal is to take a photograph, painting, etc. and place it on a PCB using the FR4, copper layer, solder mask, and silk screen to make the palette. My PCB will feature the famous work by Edvard Munch, The Scream which has always fascinated me. So, how to turn a masterpiece into a PCB facsimile?

Palette

The limited palette is a challenge. For this exercise the focus will be on the central figure in order to reduce board size (and thus cost) of the experiment. The OSHPark purple solder mask will hopefully give the dark colors desired. Andrew also used OSHPark in his example, and helpfully provided a palette which has been modified here to help describe how the layers translate to color and are stacked for conversion in KiCad.

There is a shared project for the board:

And watch it on YouTube:

Trash Dove Badge by Angela Sheehan

February 16, 2020February 15, 2020 fustiniartwork, badgelife, PCB ArtLeave a comment

Angela Sheehan has made a beautiful LED badge based on Syd Weiler’s Trash Dove sticker:

Trash Dove Badge

An LED badge I created as a Valentine gift for my partner. The artwork is a rendering of a sticker we often send each other in conversation on messenger.

I had fun using this project as a way to gain more practice in AutoDesk EAGLE.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EI2CLwQi6N0&feature=emb_title

The first thing I did was draw a simplified rendering of the artwork in Illustrator with a condensed palette. The original artwork uses a few different shades of color.

Luckily, OSHPark’s signature purple solder mask, ENIG, and white silk were already pretty good matches for the original sticker palette, so I just needed to make a few adjustments.

I decided on three tones of purple created by:

Mask over FR4 for the back bird (darkest purple)

Mask over copper for the front bird’s wing and head (lightest purple)

Mask over copper stripes for the front bird’s body (mid purple)

I used silk to define some details and for the back bird’s head, and exposed copper for the orange yellow parts of the original artwork.

The heart I left open to backlight with a red LED.

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.

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.

Unofficial Badges Get Official Recognition at DEF CON: Badge Life Contest

August 5, 2018August 4, 2018 fustiniartwork, badgelife, contest, defcon, hackaday, las vegasLeave a comment

Badge·Life (noun): the art of spending too much time, energy, money, and creativity to design and produce amazing custom electronics and get them into the hands of those who appreciate incredible craftsmanship.

via Unofficial Badges Get Official Recognition at DEF CON: Badge Life Contest — Hackaday

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 Artwork Hack Chat Transcript

April 23, 2018April 23, 2018 fustiniartwork, hack chat, hackaday.io, hackchat, kicadLeave a comment

The transcript has been posted from the Hack Chat last Friday with Andrew Sowa about Circuit Board artwork:

PCB Artwork & Photo Conversions Hack Chat Transcript

PCB Art is likely as old as the manufacturing process itself. It has evolved over time from engineers hiding easter eggs in wasted space to whole companies devoted to the intricate authentic design. Andrew has created his own style by using each layer of the PCB to make multi-color images from computer generated designs. In this chat he will talk about his process of turning photos into PCBs as well as tricks to getting high resolution results with KiCad.

https://hackaday.io/event/112119-pcb-artwork-and-photo-conversions

In this chat, we’ll be talking about PCB artwork:

Bitmap to SVG Converstion (Inkscape and Illustrator)
Kicad Footprint creation
PCB Fabrication Limits
Backlighting
Halftones

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

OSHWi Octopus Badge by Gustavo Reynaga

December 24, 2017December 23, 2017 fustiniart, artwork, badge, conference, esp8266, hackster.io, kicad, oshwdem, oshwi, spain, wearables, wifi, wirelessLeave a comment

Alex Glow of Hackster.io takes a look at the OSHWi octopus badge designed by Gustavo Reynaga:

The design files and source code are available on GitHub:

hulkco/oshwi_2017

GReynaga has shared the board on OSH Park:

001_Hackster_Rev1.kicad_pcb

Oshwi Badge HACKSTER Version Rev 1

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/