I want a beautiful piece of metal. PCB Art - PCB as Art
Since my childhood, I loved to look at printed circuit boards. They are wonderful! I could easily make out my father's tape recorder just to look at his brain. Collect then, however, could not. He could study the motherboard for a very long time - this is the whole city, with its factories, houses and highways. But I experienced a really strong delight from the PCB when my old Juno-106 voice chip came up. This synthesizer is over 30 years old. His voice chips fail over time because the compound with which they are covered begins to leak. The synthesizer has not been released for a long time. But many need these chips. One guy engaged in their reverse engineering, and assembled his own on modern components. Well, I bought 6 of these. Guys, this is a miracle!
Scarf half a millimeter thick. Stripes on the edges - scribing. Such a scratched furrow. They are made specifically for the buyer to break the voice chip from this formwork. When I was breaking out my ... wow! This is pure delight! Munch, munch.
Why am I doing this? And besides, you can make a beautiful piece of metal without a case at all!
Many people know how to make the board. This is a PCB and a layer of copper foil. A layer of solder mask is applied on it, which may be of a different color. Most often green, blue, red and white. Other colors are possible, but they are often more expensive. On top - a layer of labeling. It is traditionally black and white.
For soldering BGA cases, copper is coated with gold over the nickel underlayer. It looks very cool. And now, having such a set of colors, you can try to create a masterpiece.
Some are not bothered, and are sculpted as a true artist. Straight textolite marker:
You can do just an artistic opening of the mask. After coating with gold, it will be very cool:
Or another example - clock payloads on radio tubes:
Some companies use such PCB art as their trademark:
The entire top panel is a PCB. A source
I also wanted to participate
In the process of inventing my beautiful piece of iron, I also wanted to try this technique. For the sample nothing more elegant than a scarf Arduino did not invent. The benefit of the finished project was at hand. Since the choice of colors at our plants is not particularly rich, he stopped at the gold, red color of the mask and black marking. And for sure you know where these colors are traditionally used! Here's what happened:
On the top layer I decided not to arrange art. Still, labeling is useful. Yes, and red color resembles the insides of a painted box.
Make it easy enough. Imagine three layers - silk, mask and copper. All gold - a hole in the silk and mask. All red - a hole in the silk. All black is silk. It seems simple.
But I'm not quite happy with the result. Still, lead solder and empty polygons without gold spoil the impression.
Do you have any favorite examples of PCB art? Share in the comments, please. Would love to admire.
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