Custom PCB
PCB stands for Printed Circuit Board. To make a long story short: I made this design (scheme and PCB) for a friend of mine. He wanted a 7-segments-display to show what gear his (tuned) car is in. When I say tuned I mean “tuned”, he disassembled the total car about 4 times, it’s like 15 years old (a Golf 2 GTI I think) and most of it is custom and/or handmade. Anyway, whenever he shifts his gearbox he has these cool digits following his every move 
This is what it looked like before assembly:
This is what it looked like after assembly, top and bottom:
and
And this is what the PCB’s that failed looked like. The product I’m using to make the PCB’s was too old and not powerful enough (not anymore, it had served for too long :)), so I had to change it.
This is a 7-segments-display for those of you that haven’t heard of it yet:
You can find these in tons of electrical products from televisions to clocks etc.
It is completely custom made (by me </proud>) and if you’re interested just mail me and I’ll send you the scheme (made in Eagle btw). It consist of 27 simple diodes, 7 resistors, some electric wire, a PCB and lots of solder 
It was built using the “diodematrix” principle, very simple yet effective. I was going to program a PIC, but this seemed cheaper and it works on 12 volts (a PIC needs a pretty stable 5V). More info on demand.
13 commentaren April 28th, 2005