Nakatomi Plaza RFID reader prop

How good did it turn out with the boards installed?! I'm super happy with the final result, and I think Bruce approves too.

How good does this look!?

PCBWay reached out and offered to sponsor a project and I *had* to do this! This pair of boards replaces the janky "vero" boards in the back of the Nakatomi Plaza RFID reader and I think they turned out great. I spent a lot of time finding the right fonts for the text etc so it's as close as I can make it to "canon" (when you consider RFID hadn't been invented yet... :D).

This is my first manufactured PCB and PCBWay's quoting form was very easy to use, with the naming of the configuration options closely matching the settings of my design in KiCad (the first pic) so I could easily translate between them. PCBWay’s knowledge base was quite useful in getting the right Gerber files out of KiCad too and being able to upload them as part of the quote sped things up a lot. Whilst these boards were sponsored, the cost would have been a lot cheaper than I had assumed, and even the cheapest shipping to Australia took less than 2 weeks.

I'll post another update once the board has been installed, but I’m really happy with the finished quality and how close they matched my vision. Thank you PCBWay!

While I'm waiting for the PCBs to arrive, I've made some minor updates to the Python code repository to improve the deployment process (I'm going to have to build a dedicated package for that soon...) and I've change the LEDs to be latching as it makes the prop stand out more.

I also spotted RFID Journal did a fun write-up, thanks guys! :)

Oh, and finally, if there's something from this build you want access to that's not in the GitHub repo or the uploaded files, let me know and I'll share it. The PCB Gerbers etc will be shared as soon as I confirm I didn't made any mistakes.

The "vero" board internals are about to get a little upgrade... Here's a sneak-peek of what I'm drafting:

Take 2 of clear-coating and re-applying the vinyl logo went a lot better and I'm really happy with the finished prop:

From here I'll add a structure on the back for wall-mounting, and I'm thinking of tinting the sign front so the OPEN text is a little less visible when the lights are off, but otherwise it's done.

I wasn't expecting that, but I've had a pair of wonderful write-ups in Tom's Hardware and Hackster.io!

In the meantime I've had to repair some minor paint damage (the wind blew it over while a clear-coat was drying...) but I'll be re-applying the logo (which worked really well!) shortly, re-clear-coating it, and installing it in our hallway :)

This is how it looked just before the clear-coat-scratched saga:

And here's the damage...

This is where I've gotten the project to so far, just need to work out the logo for the front and mounting hardware for the back.