Thursday, April 17, 2014

Etching PCBs and folding plastic

Hey guys,
I came across some interesting rapid prototyping techniques that might be useful.

Laser Cut PCBs

The first is a technique to etch PCBs with a laser cutter. The process basically involves spray painting the surface of a copper board with black paint, and then burning away the copper with a laser cutter. The first tutorial talks about creating a jig for alignment so you can etch double-sided boards!

More info at these links:

Folding Acrylic with a Laser Cutter

This technique involves defocusing the laser cutter to distribute the heat and get the acrylic to fold. This allows for fully finished prototypes without assembly. This is going to be a commercial product, but they explain the details on how it's accomplished. Their software does all the hard work, but this should be able to be done manually with some experimentation.

Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Wireless ? Power ?

Without taking the time to verify this, I think this system uses radio to recharge the LED banks.  There is more on the technology HERE.