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Step 1The Torch
I won't kid you - these two cards need some serious construction skills, and are both experimental (particularly the dialler), so are no beginners projects, but wait 'til you see the face of the first person you give one of these to! Don't try these designs unless you have successfully made a few electronic items before - they need good soldering skills, and ideally a way of making some printed circuit boards, although if you soldering skills are REALLY good, and you are making just a few, it is possible to make versions of both of these cards without circuit boards, and just "point to point" wiring - my prototypes were done like this.
Firstly the torch. This is the easier of the two. Although you could use some PVC cards to enclose a hand-wired version (keep reading on to see this technique used in the "dialler"), making copies is much easier with a proper PCB. A tutorial on how to make a PCB is beyond the scope of this article, but if you haven't tried it before, it is a really good technique to be able to do and opens up a countless variety of electronic projects. Here is an instructable on a simple toner transfer PCB - personally I find more repeatable and professional results with the photographic method - couldn't find an instructable for this one, but there is plenty of info on the web - I use a very cheap 500W halogen light from the local hardware store to expose mine for a few minutes, and then develop, etch and tin. If there is enough demand, I might get some universal "torch" and "dialler" boards commercially made.
Anyway, assuming you can get a PCB made up, the file which I used is included below - this can be modified on a standard graphics package. If you can't read EPS files, then try the 300dpi bitmapped version included below as well. You can of course use a specialised PCB package, but I wanted an unusual cursive font on mine, so just hand-drew the design on a graphics package. This allowed me to incorporate my name into the actual circuit board - the electric current actually goes though my name! If you want to produce a reasonable batch, you will probably want to tile your image over the page after you have made your changes.
Firstly the torch. This is the easier of the two. Although you could use some PVC cards to enclose a hand-wired version (keep reading on to see this technique used in the "dialler"), making copies is much easier with a proper PCB. A tutorial on how to make a PCB is beyond the scope of this article, but if you haven't tried it before, it is a really good technique to be able to do and opens up a countless variety of electronic projects. Here is an instructable on a simple toner transfer PCB - personally I find more repeatable and professional results with the photographic method - couldn't find an instructable for this one, but there is plenty of info on the web - I use a very cheap 500W halogen light from the local hardware store to expose mine for a few minutes, and then develop, etch and tin. If there is enough demand, I might get some universal "torch" and "dialler" boards commercially made.
Anyway, assuming you can get a PCB made up, the file which I used is included below - this can be modified on a standard graphics package. If you can't read EPS files, then try the 300dpi bitmapped version included below as well. You can of course use a specialised PCB package, but I wanted an unusual cursive font on mine, so just hand-drew the design on a graphics package. This allowed me to incorporate my name into the actual circuit board - the electric current actually goes though my name! If you want to produce a reasonable batch, you will probably want to tile your image over the page after you have made your changes.
LightCard.eps741 KB| « Previous Step | Download PDFView All Steps | Next Step » |
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Dec 16, 2007. 3:35 PMSsynful
says:
Wow. I demand you go on American Inventor!
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