3D Printed NFC Bracelet Prototype (TfCD Project by Jeremy Evers and Bas Van Der Werf)

The following instructable will help you to make your own NFC bracelet. This bracelet can be given different functions by writing code with your smartphone on the NFC chip. An NFC chip is a chip which can communicate at close range with a NFC reader device, which can be found in numerous smartphones.

This project is done for the course Technology for Concept Design at the TUDelft.

Step 1: Getting Components

components:

NFC chips (we gathered ours from NFC tags shown in the picture) 3D printer filament (for our bracelets we used ABS) 3D printer phone with an NFC reader/writer (we used an android phone) 3D model of the NFC bracelet

For making the 3D model of the NFC bracelet we could print we took the bracelet model from https://grabcad.com/library/bracelet-31 made by Jovana Bogovac. We modified this form to fit the NFC chips we took for the design. Our modified bracelet can be found on this page.

Step 2: Bracelet Printing

The next step after gathering all components is to print the bracelet itself. We took the 3D model from grabcad and modified this. However to make the bracelet fit your arm you should adjust the size of the bracelet to get a good fit.

Step 3: Getting the NFC Chip

Now we start by breaking out the NFC chips from our tags. For our first prototype we used the plastic disc with the NFC still glued on top. This is fine, however you will get a bulky bracelet. The tricky part is to use a knife to get the NFC chip loose from the plastic without breaking it.

Step 4: Placing the NFC

The next step is to put the NFC chip in the bracelet. To get it to stay there, (if you’re certain you don’t need to take it out again) it’s possible to glue it in place.

Step 5:

Now take your phone with NFC reader/writer. Make sure you enable the NFC in your settings menu. Download an app in the marketplace to write tasks to your NFC chip. We used the app ‘’NFC tools’’, which works fine. Within this app you can add an record (function) to a chip. Then you should write it on to the chip and hold the chip against your phone.

Step 6: Assign Tasks to the NFC Chip

Assign different tasks to your NFC bracelet to put it to use. We used it in this test to open a website on your phone.

In the near future we could see more devices connected to NFC readers. Which makes a device like this a must have. Think of locking your car, front door, your computer and paying everywhere with your bracelet.