Inspiration
I was inspired by an Art Deco fuzed glass objet d'art I saw. I really like the geometric design elements you often find in Art Deco objects. The very simple shape, lines and colours of this struck me as something which could be easily replicated by a PCB, plus some 21st century updates.
Design
The idea was to use a mix of the PCB shape, solder mask, silk screen and exposed copper areas which are gold plated to get the aesthetics.
Such a complex board outline and exposed copper areas required me to first create the design in Inkscape . I drew up a vector art illustration of the complete design, before separating out the board outline and each exposed copper areas. When designing the board outline it's also important to think about the profiling router tool path, any concave segments need to account for the diameter of the cutter.
The schematics and PCB were designed in KiCAD , this amazing Open Source package is my go to CAD tool for electronics these days.
Assembled PCB Panels
I got the PCBs made and assembled, hand placing so many 0603 SMD LEDs is not much fun so it was well worth getting them professionally assembled.
I designed a custom panel in KiCAD in order to meet the PCB assembly minimum size requirements. To keep assembly costs down only the top size was assembled, so I had to hand solder the back mounted battery clips, thankfully this is pretty easy.
End Result
I'm pretty please with how they came out in the end.
