First Mod!! Lots of Pics! 'Circuit Board Effect'

This might be the same mod, but it shows the pens here

Here's the thread where this is discussed.

Or you could make your own decals


Incidentally,

WELCOME TO THE FORUMS!!!!!

clocker2 said:

Safronz,

First, let me congratulate you on coming up with a brilliant concept.
I've never seen it's like and and the (potential) effect is stunning.

But (don't hate me), the outcome is going to be hobbled by the difficulty of doing this by hand.
I have a suggestion (again, don't hate me...)that I think will give you far superior results, but will require that you strip off all that you have done so far.

You will need to come up with a schematic for circuits that is proportional to the panels you are working on.
They needn't be actual size, but able to be scaled to the proper finished size.
The more complex the design, the better.
Take these designs to you local "Instant Sign" shop...you certainly have them in San Antonio, shop around till you find one that is interested in working with you.
These shops use a computerized plotter to cut their lettering out of self adhesive vinyl and can scan your circuit designs direct to the plotter ( they are almost certainly using Gerber equipment and it can easily do this).
Once the design is scanned they simply spec the final size and the machine will cut out a perfect replica.
Once the design is cut, all the excess is stripped off and a cover (transfer) sheet is applied and the design is then laid onto your panel in one piece, like a giant decal.

The process ( while time-consuming...especially the cutting) is quite simple and you can save money by doing the stripping ( the common term for this is "weeding") and the final installation yourself.
I used to work in the business and know for a fact that this can be done with no real technical problems.

If I were to try your mod this is how I would do it.

Click to expand...

The cutting of the circuits with a vinyl cutter was actually an idea I had in the beginning. A few months ago my dad was trying to set up a business that makes lit up signs for home addresses. It was a really good idea but unfortunately too many other businesses were popping up with same idea. He bought an actual vinyl cutter which was like 2000 dollars. (It's a graphtec 24" - here's the website that he got it from: http://www.graphtecusa.com/products.php?visit=img&cat_id=1&series_id=26 )

Right now it's at his work and I kept asking him to bring it home but he never did So finally I said screw it I'll just make my own circuits (I guess maybe I should have been more patient). I was making a website for his company which was to be called alphalumerics. You can see it at http://www.alphalumerics.com (I am running this site on the same server that I host all my pictures) But that site will never finish because neither will the business. So hey 2.0 I'll try to push my dad more to bring home the vinyl cutter and make my own strips. The hard part about that is drawing up all the circuits in autocad (I have never used autocad before).

Oh yea that 3 that you see on my old case was cut out by the vinyl cutter.


But you have definitely influenced me to use the cutter for 2.0, you are right, it would be much cleaner and nicer looking.

NicePants42 said:

This has been mentioned before but..

This mod would be completely untouchable if you used the strips for power. You'd probably have to encase the strips between two layers of plexi (keeping random stuff from getting zapped, and making the case a lot heavier) but it would be SO worth it. No wires = completely sick. Even if the only things you powered via the strips were fans, it would rock. Hard.

Also, since you mentioned that the silver is slightly hard to see on a clear background, have you considered making the strips UV reactive? There was a nice mod here where the guy used some kind of UV reactive color stripping. Circuit traces lit up like that could look pretty sweet - or you could probably find some paint/ink that would work. Then all you'd have to do was figure out how to set it up so that the strips would both transfer power and glow under UV - no problem.

After that, all you'd have to do is get a UV reactive pen and trace the traces on your mobo/pci cards. here is a nice example, and I know there are more around...

Click to expand...

That first suggestion would be really hard to do, but a very good goal for 2.0. This is my first mod and I think I've already gone way too far to do some of the stuff mentioned here. As for tracing my mobo/pci cards I might have to do that, but I'll do that after I get all the circuits on and crap so I can "visualize" and see if tracing the cards would look good. (I need to find the right colors and I don't know if that green pen would match my fans)

EDIT: Oh yea and thanks for the welcoming!

Thanks all for the suggestions!

Wow, this is turning out pretty cool. Your dad's vinyl printer would have seriously made things easy for you, but that's how modding goes. Build, find an easier way, kick thine own ***. Oh well, atleast your not breaking the pattern.

Has anyone else seen the G4TV special on Asia Carrera (World-renowned Porn female)?
She made 3 pc's herself, all of which are top-notch. She designs skins for UT2004 and other stuff. This project kind of reminds me of that, except without the porn.

toyomatt84 said:

Wow, this is turning out pretty cool. Your dad's vinyl printer would have seriously made things easy for you, but that's how modding goes. Build, find an easier way, kick thine own ***. Oh well, atleast your not breaking the pattern.

Has anyone else seen the G4TV special on Asia Carrera (World-renowned Porn female)?
She made 3 pc's herself, all of which are top-notch. She designs skins for UT2004 and other stuff. This project kind of reminds me of that, except without the porn.

Click to expand...

lol.

Has anyone else seen the G4TV special on Asia Carrera (World-renowned Porn female)?
She made 3 pc's herself, all of which are top-notch. She designs skins for UT2004 and other stuff. This project kind of reminds me of that, except without the porn

Click to expand...

You know, there isn't too much you can say to respond to a comment like that.



and no, I didn't watch the porn/computer modding special.

Update

I can't believe I woke up at 10 after going to bed at like 6 a.m. So this is what I have been up to all morning/afternoon (I LOVE NOT HAVING TO GO TO WORK!):

(I apologize in advance for some crappy picture taking, my hands shake too much)
















^^ That screw doesn't match with the others because I lost one of the screws. I can't find it anywhere I guess I'll have to go buy a new one or continue my search








I'm hoping once the psu is on there things will look more complete. Just like the top I think it needs something more.

Its certainly a unique idea. Before I saw any pictures, I wasn't too sure about your idea.

Halfway through your first post, I got to thinking about using the fake traces as power lines...then I relized that the angles were made by overlapping pieces. AFAIK, not too many adhesives are electricly conductive... What you *can* do is use thin-guage wires. The 120mm Panaflo L1A's I have use tiny [smaller-than] 26 guage wires ([email protected]), and the oddball Panaflos that are the next step up use multistrand 26 guage wires ([email protected]) - proving 26 guage wires can take the current. Using a little bit of clear tape or glue, you could run the tiny wires directly behind the fake traces and never see them.

Another idea I had was to make the fake traces 'glow'. Using masking tape, you could mask off the areas on the other side of the traces (inside), but making the unmasked area behind the traces a bit wider than the traces. Paint the areas between the tape (behind the traces), and you'll see a glowing strip surrounding the traces. To get a better picture of my idea, take 2 pieces of 8"x11" paper: fold both in half side-to-side (down to 4"x11"), fold one in half again (down to 2"x11"), open a fold on each (for an 8"x11" piece with crease down the center and a 4"x11" piece with fold down the center), then lay the visible center creases on top of each other. Pretend the small piece is silver, and the big piece benieth is glowing UV-reactive paint.

Looking great so far. Same goes for the case...

HiProfile said:

Looking great so far. Same goes for the case...

Click to expand...

Consider yourself lucky I'm not the extremely jealous type .

safronz said:

The hard part about that is drawing up all the circuits in autocad (I have never used autocad before).

Click to expand...

Ah, but that's the beauty of this method...you needn't draw any circuits at all.
It's easy to Google the web for images of PCBs.
Here's one I found in 5 seconds...

Simply scale it to whatever proportion you need and export to the plotter.
Viola!

clocker2 said:

Ah, but that's the beauty of this method...you needn't draw any circuits at all.
It's easy to Google the web for images of PCBs.
Here's one I found in 5 seconds...
Simply scale it to whatever proportion you need and export to the plotter.
Viola!

Click to expand...

Wow, I googled PCB boards a few times and didn't see that nice of a drawing. Thanks clocker, I am going to save that image.

wow ..looks good.
clocker dont u got better things to do then try and waste others money lol..

i think it looks relly relly good for the first time ever doing something like that. the idea of taking a pic of the net is ..well theres a word for it.. forget it tho.. stealin in a way.

having your own ideas makes it unique to yourself..and i think thats what you want more then other things..eh?

wizard james said:

wow ..looks good.
clocker dont u got better things to do then try and waste others money lol..

Click to expand...

Erm...no.
Having temporarily squandered all of my own cash, my new goal is to drag everyone else down to my fiscal level.

@safronz,
A few years ago I was commissioned to do a large (2'x3') etched glass design for a company to be mounted above their front door.
It included some fairly large sections of printed circuitry and the method I described to you was how I made the masking for the sandblast template ( in reverse though).
The trick when cutting the vinyl (especially on a design as delicate as a circuit) is to slow the cutterhead waaaay down and be sure the blade is very sharp ( preferrably new). Otherwise it will just chew the vinyl all to pieces.
Fortunately, the shop I work with is very enthusiastic about weird, out of the ordinary projects.
We would load the design at night before closing and let the machine work unattended all night.
Then I would come in and weed it in the morning.

If you were really into it...for ver.2.0 you could replicate the same design in two colors...say burgundy and a medium gray.
Lay the gray first and then the burgundy over it, offset maybe 1/8" in two directions.
The burgundy would appear to be floating above the panel, casting a grey shadow.

Altogether so far:





They look a little blurry, I'm not very good with this digital camera, but it's got some cool features, I just don't know how to use them all that well.

clocker2 said:

Erm...no.
The trick when cutting the vinyl (especially on a design as delicate as a circuit) is to slow the cutterhead waaaay down and be sure the blade is very sharp ( preferrably new). Otherwise it will just chew the vinyl all to pieces.
Fortunately, the shop I work with is very enthusiastic about weird, out of the ordinary projects.
We would load the design at night before closing and let the machine work unattended all night.
Then I would come in and weed it in the morning.

If you were really into it...for ver.2.0 you could replicate the same design in two colors...say burgundy and a medium gray.
Lay the gray first and then the burgundy over it, offset maybe 1/8" in two directions.
The burgundy would appear to be floating above the panel, casting a grey shadow.

Click to expand...

You are making me really want to get to version 2. I'm going to take bugging my father about the vinyl cutter up a knotch. Wizard has a point in that I should keep things original, I would probabaly design my own circuit - maybe it will be based off a real circuit - so like a real design for a working circuit.

Very kool!!! and Welcome to the forums!!!!!

keep up the good work !!!

cheers
Charlie

DAMN IT Sharon! You're going to own me at sanlan!

safronz said:

Wizard has a point in that I should keep things original, I would probabaly design my own circuit - maybe it will be based off a real circuit - so like a real design for a working circuit.

Click to expand...

Suit yourself...although even real electronic engineers/designers use standard subsystem designs when working on a new piece.
Why redesign the wheel everyday after all?

MoonWolf said:

Consider yourself lucky I'm not the extremely jealous type .

Click to expand...

Erm, take it as a compliment


Once I saw that PCB picture, I remembered everything I picked up while trying to source cheap blank PCB's...

This HIGHLY imformative site is, well, highly informative about designing PCB's. It lists a few programs that you can use to design and print out PCB's onto paper. I'm guessing that your dad's vinyl printer/cutter can deal with the picture outputs the PCB apps can make... Heck, with all the idea's we've given you so far, ver2 better be darned good! j/k

BTW I also found an html page I had saved that's basicly a template for making a PCB - a gif on it has all the differnet types of PCB elements & a grid so you can cut & paste your design. If you'd like it, drop me a PM (with MoonWolf's consent, of course )

Hey guys I won't be posting for a few days -- off to vacation

have fun, see yea here in the forums when you return!!

cheers
Charlie