My First Annual Christmas PCB :)

[vigilante398]

I've seen people do neat Christmas tree ornament PCBs (I know MAS Effects usually does one) and I always thought it would be neat to try something out so my wife can see that PCBs can be beautiful The design isn't perfect as it was done in a hurry at 1AM so I could get it ordered and get boards back before Christmas, but it's cool enough, and I can improve it next year.

It's run by an ATMega328p with a 16MHz clock and programmed by headers on the back (which I remove when I'm done flashing it), and the whole thing runs off a CR2032 battery mounted on the back. It only pulls an average of 20mA so the battery lasts about 10 hours.




And it doesn't look like I can embed instagram videos here, but this is a quick video of the light show: https://www.instagram.com/p/CXu3Z2ujR-U/

 

[SYLV9ST9R]

Awesome!

 

[finebyfine]

Love it! What software did you use to design it? Doing cool board shapes in diptrace always feels like an uphill battle compared to EasyEDA

 

[vigilante398]

Love it! What software did you use to design it? Doing cool board shapes in diptrace always feels like an uphill battle compared to EasyEDA

Thanks I use Altium designer, I can import DXF/DWG files and convert them to a board outline. Diptrace is amazing and straightforward for 99% of things, but weird board shapes falls into that 1%.

EDIT: I was mistaken, apparently my skills were just lacking when I used Diptrace.

 

[Robert]

That's sharp!

It's fairly straightforward in DipTrace as well, I used it for the Quarantine Fuzz.

 

[finebyfine]

That's sharp!

It's fairly straightforward in DipTrace as well, I used it for the Quarantine Fuzz.

Man have I just been an idiot thinking Diptrace would do this with SVGs instead of DXF?

 

[BuddytheReow]

Super cool, dude! Curious, how much was the PCB to custom make it?

 

[vigilante398]

Super cool, dude! Curious, how much was the PCB to custom make it?

Thanks! I ordered 10 boards, obviously higher quantity would bring the price down, but it was $14.60 for the PCBs, $74.52 for assembly (because I'm lazy), and $20 shipping. I could have saved a few bucks if I assembled them myself as the board manufacturer charges about twice as much for the ATMega328p than Mouser or DigiKey, but it was nice not to have to deal with it.

 

[finebyfine]

A monster is BORN (sorry for derailing this thread)

 

[BuddytheReow]

A monster is BORN (sorry for derailing this thread)

View attachment 20134

#sorrynotsorry

 

[fig]

Now see what you've started?

Great stuff!

 

[Robert]

A monster is BORN (sorry for derailing this thread)

The only quirk with DipTrace is that you have to get the dimensions right in the vector file because you can't scale it once it's imported. (or at least you couldn't the last time I did it)

 

[jimilee]

That’s badass!

 

[Chuck D. Bones]

DUDE!
Got any more boards?

We know we're living in the future when we can buy a computer for a buck and then use it to decorate a Christmas tree. Well done!

 

[vigilante398]

DUDE!
Got any more boards?

We know we're living in the future when we can buy a computer for a buck and then use it to decorate a Christmas tree. Well done!

Thanks! Unfortunately I don't have any extra boards, they've been pretty easy to get rid of next year I plan to order earlier and order more so I could sell a few, but this year all 10 I ordered were quickly spoken for.