Freeform electronic circuit sculpture
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Since circuit sculpture contest was announced I immediately knew I wanted to participate. Mostly because I have never made freeform circuit and was inspired by other people's work showcased in contest article.
Sadly, due to work and holidays that I spent with my family I could only work on this project from 28th of December onward. So what you see here is one weekend, few weekdays of work and three weeks of daydreaming. Hope you enjoy:
Next step for this build was to install electronics into wired frame. OLED module was glued to the frame using double sided tape(wrapper around wired frame). Switches and header connector were glue using two component epoxy while MCU was fixed with dab of hot plastic on the bottom.
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After all electronics were installed and tested I installed the glass lens. Lens just snaps into place with no glue used. This makes it easy to remove the lens to get access to electronics. 22mm NATO strap with navy camo pattern(to match the colour of OLED) is used.
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I really like how the watch turned out. OLED looks super bright and sharp while magnifier lens gives it that unique distorted look. Only thing I would like to change is to show bigger part of the circuit through the lens(to adjust layout of components).
Here is video demonstrating finished watch (well, almost still need to tweak software). Hope you like it:
I started this project by first making the functional circuit. Brain of this watch is ATMEGA328P-AU microcontroller running arduino. Information is displayed on 128x64 0.96" OLED screen. Three button are used to control the watch functions and female pin header is used to program the watch via UART(and to charge the battery). I used only basic stuff since circuit will be suspended in the air.
To make thing easier i designed and printed template of the circuit so I could easier route the wires. MCU is in QFP-32 package with 0.8mm pitch. Wires used for traces are 0.3mm and passive components are in 0603 package.
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Watch body is made out of 1.7 and 0.8mm thick copper wire. For bending, same template was used in addition with 3D printed plastic ring. Rotary tool was used to grind excess solder from joints.
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After assembly body was sanded using 180, 240 and 240 grit abrasive discs then finished up with brass brush and polished using polishing compound.
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For case cover I will be using old power led lens(bought on eBay, never used). It will act as a sort of magnifier for OLED screen and will add cool distortion effect.
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Since project is made with recycled parts, I need to restore this used battery that will be used to power the watch. Battery is lithium-polymer with 110mAh capacity. Should be enough for 6-7 hours of active time, or 30-35 days in sleep with moderate use of OLED and other watch functions.
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Not "Steam punk", I call this "Solder punk". WAY cool!
Super Keen! Are the copper wires coated at all? They must be, right? How did you go about soldering to the coated wire? I always have trouble with that and cant decide between trying to burn it off with the solder or to file it off.
Copper wires connecting components are coated to prevent shorts(you can see they are darker). I prefer scraping the coating using exacto blade so that I get nicer solder joints by removing minimum of coating. Other wires(frame) weren't coated but I did polished them with grease after i did all the soldering to prevent them from oxidising.
Nice. Needs a well-worn brown leather strap to match that 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea vibe you have going.
I agree, but I only had canvas and silicone straps at hand, will try to get one.
Thank you for the comments, guys. I am glad you like the project.
A wearable sculpture, with the Jolly Wrencher to boot? Love it!
Mile
Michael Aichlmayr
Breno Juliano "Dot"
Timothy Bomer
Roger
VERY nice! What about the code, functionality, etc? Whatever is shown on the display looks interesting too.