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A Very Annoying Business Card

Solar powered business card designed to attract attention on a regular basis.

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A solar powered business card that emits attention seeking beeps every 2 hours to remind the recipient to send the ratcatcher an email.

The objective is to create a nice looking business card that's not too fat and that will remind whoever it was given to of the existence of the 'ratcatcher' every 2 hours or so with an annoying sequence of beeps.

Obviously, most of the cards will be given out with no electronics to those considered to be on the 'B' list ie mates in the pub. But if there's a serious looking 'A' lister like a billionaire living on a Caribbean island, then they get the version fully populated with electronics and battery.

The electronics is not completely ridiculous compared to the overall concept and features a small solar cell and energy harvesting chip to keep the lithium coin cell battery charged up. During the 'rest' period, the ESP32 MCU is completely turned off to save power and gets turned on through a transistor when the timer sends a pulse. A nifty CMOS logic circuit keeps the MCU in the 'on' state until all the annoying beeps have been broadcasted at which point everything is turned off again.. The energy harvester works at very low voltage levels and will charge the battery even when sitting on the billionaire's desk, assuming it is the right way up !

The real question is: 'how long before the prospective billionaire either sends the ratcatcher an email (presumably to get his rat infestation sorted) or throw the whole thing into the Gulf of Mexico in disgust?'

  • PCBs arrived from PCBWay

    Dead Rat Productions06/04/2024 at 15:40 0 comments

    After a bit of friendly haggling over the number of business cards to be produced, Liam from PCBWay agreed to fully sponsor this project with some lovely gold ENIG plated pads, solder pasting stencil and perfectly reproduced artwork and email address font. I was worried about the font, but it seems most people have Verdana somewhere on their computer systems. It would be pretty bad if the address was in system font or some over strange offering.

    All of the circuits have already been tested so it should be just a case of placing the components and throwing into the reflow oven. A few changes to the design had to be made including getting rid of the ESP32 C3 board as it seemed to be a fake and replacing it with a fully branded and trusted Seeed Studio Xiao ESP32C3 Tiny MCU, which worked fine.

    One noticeable choice in the design is the battery holder. It's an expensive component, but in my mind very worthwhile. The worst thing I could do is fly all the way to the Bahamas to visit the prospective billionaire project investor with a business card that has a loose battery. With this battery holder, you literally have to prize the battery out with a screwdriver - it will never accidentally fall out or come loose!

  • Artwork and battery position alignment

    Dead Rat Productions05/11/2024 at 17:25 0 comments

    Basic initial layout looks ok. Main thing is that the battery fits inside the rat's abdomen. The timer module is just copy and pasted from another project so that should be fine. Just waiting to test a suitable IMU, which should arrive Monday-ish. Could be room for more than one buzzer, which could be fun.

  • Initial Concept

    Dead Rat Productions05/10/2024 at 12:52 0 comments

    The layout has to make sure that the battery does not interfere with the artwork. Fortunately, it fits nicely in the rat's stomach !!

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