Arduboy: The Interactive Digital Business Card #arduino
Kevin Bates shared with us his interactive digital business card project: “It is completely flush with the circuit board. I love your site I have learned virtually everything I know about micro controllers from you! Thanks!”
The primary trick of this design is having milled cutouts made for surface mount components to be press fit into, using the circuit board as a kind of frame. Components selected have a thickness near that of the circuit board (1.6mm). Furthermore, to minimize the board thickness, the Atmega328P is inverted so that the bulk of its height below the surface. The result of equal thickness and recessed installation provides a flush appearance. The primary benefit beyond the aesthetic quality is the device is easily slid from a wallet. The high quality boards and the excellent service from oshpark also makes this build possible.
…Inspiration struck when I was working with the OLED module. For some time I had been pondering the best method for protecting and otherwise accounting for the flex ribbon on the screen within the design of the circuit board. When prototyping, the screen laid flat against the breakout board and this felt like the most natural orientation for the display to be installed. Placing a circuit board next to the OLED screen revealed near identical height and in that moment I knew it was time to get to work….
Adafruit publishes a wide range of writing and video content, including interviews and reporting on the maker market and the wider technology world. Our standards page is intended as a guide to best practices that Adafruit uses, as well as an outline of the ethical standards Adafruit aspires to. While Adafruit is not an independent journalistic institution, Adafruit strives to be a fair, informative, and positive voice within the community – check it out here: adafruit.com/editorialstandards
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.