Monday, June 19, 2023

Cardboard Circuits


 

 

This is an idea I've been working on for a bit as a simple but hopefully interesting project to give out at various events.  It was originally inspired by a business card for SparkleLabs.com (which I have since lost) that had schematics for a simple LED circuit and was die cut to allow a battery, LED, & resistor to be inserted.  I moved to cardboard after finding that the added complexity of using the copper tape (which I think is fun to work with and looks pretty cool) didn't work very well on standard cardstock.  I 3d printed a stamp with the circuit layout, which works somewhat, though I skipped the step of molding a rubber stamp, so the hard plastic print doesn't always transfer clearly to the rough cardboard surface.  There is still some improvements to be made, but they were definitely popular at a recent street fair, so I'm going to continue working with this concept.  It also has made me curious about using 3d printing for stamp making, because I enjoyed designing the image, and the process of casting a rubber stamp from a 3d print looks like fun.

Here is the stamp I printed 

   
This is an early iteration of the idea    



And here are a couple creative interpretations of the idea made by other MakeFixHack members:




If you have any questions about the material I used or the process, or if you picked one up and liked making it, let me know!