# Circuit board material?



## mikedealer (Aug 22, 2015)

Anyone ever figure out where to purchase circuit board material from for blanks?  I know it's ultra thin and actual material. Haven't been able to find it. Want to do a run of them and cast myself.


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## 1080Wayne (Aug 22, 2015)

Think you have to do it the hard way . Take a the circuit board out of an old computer , remove resistors and capacitors that stand up too high , thin the board down so that you can bend it around the tube , then cast . That is how the original ones shown on this forum were done .

The commercially available ones that you now see were made explicitly for the pen turning market . As far as I know , they have never seen use in any other product , or ever had a purposeful electron flow through them . In essence , they are an illusion of a true circuit board pen .


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## mikedealer (Aug 22, 2015)

i dont know if thats so true that they were never intended for use.  i had a blank break out on me, and there are micro diodes and resistors actually on it, like 1 or 2.  rest of board was completely empty.
so its like they wouldnt go through the trouble of adding live components to a useless item that will be made into a pen, it doesnt add anything to pen by being there.  
i was thinking was some sort of light feed material that gets placed on fiberglass later on and that its easier to work with and place items on a flexible sheet rather than run a rigid sheet through the line.  

talking to a few electronics friends, chances are this stuff is like a factory scrap i guess. i dont know.. would love to get some.


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## Skie_M (Aug 22, 2015)

I think most of those circuit board blanks were made from recycled computer video card and sound card boards ... perhaps a few motherboards here and there.


There are fairly easy ways to get your hands on that kind of stuff.  Check your local computer repair places and ask them to save old "trash" boards for you.  Be prepared to pay a few dollars per board, because there's actual GOLD still on those boards somewhere and in the chips.

Cut the boards into a comfortable size for you to work with, and put them in a toaster oven (with a drip tray underneath to catch all the solder) at around 450 degrees and remove most of the components that will be in the way.  This will include anything plastic, such as wire connectors, microchip bodies, capacitors, wire wraps/inductors, possibly resistors and diodes... If you're lucky enough to pull on a microchip and have just the top part pop loose, give SERIOUS consideration to displaying the inside of that microchip on your pen.  The intricate design is more than enough reward for the extra pains you take to keep the microchip intact.

Once this is done, soak the board in acetone to release the top few layers (this is all you need) and wrap your tubes before it re-solidifies .... secure it in place and cast the tubes in clear resin.


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## PSNCO (Aug 22, 2015)

http://www.penturners.org/forum/f43/has-anyone-tried-create-their-own-circuit-board-pen-blank-88990/

I'd read this thread before proceeding with thoughts of making your own blanks.  It really doesn't seem worth it to make your own blanks.


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## mtassie (Aug 22, 2015)

Dennis Ewing has done a lot of them. You have to remove the circurt board from the foil by grinding. If you do this you need a respirator and dust collector and fan the board dust is very bad to breath.


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## vtgaryw (Aug 22, 2015)

Gets me to thinking - we could have flex circuit PCBs fab'd to our own design.  These can be very thin, a few mils or less.  You could size them to fit the most popular pen sizes...

There'd be some upfront costs.  

Not volunteering to do this, just thinking...

-gary


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## chartle (Aug 22, 2015)

vtgaryw said:


> Gets me to thinking - we could have flex circuit PCBs fab'd to our own design.  These can be very thin, a few mils or less.  You could size them to fit the most popular pen sizes...
> 
> There'd be some upfront costs.
> 
> ...



I've seen flexible circuit boards and never seen one flexible enough to wrap around a pen tube. At least not one that has components on it. So it appears that you would have to still do want ever they do to real circuit boards to make them flex that much. 

I guess you could print a "Circuit Board", glue it to a tube and then glue SMD components on that.


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## thewishman (Aug 22, 2015)

Skie_M said:


> I think most of those circuit board blanks were made from recycled computer video card and sound card boards ... perhaps a few motherboards here and there.
> 
> 
> There are fairly easy ways to get your hands on that kind of stuff.  Check your local computer repair places and ask them to save old "trash" boards for you.  Be prepared to pay a few dollars per board, because there's actual GOLD still on those boards somewhere and in the chips.
> ...



There will be seriously toxic substances released in this process. Don't breathe any of this stuff!


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## greggas (Aug 22, 2015)

i buy them from many folks on eBay...scrap, salvage, outdated boards, remove the large parts, sad the board very thin on the backside, bend and glue on tube ( heat gun helps here)  and cast


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## greggas (Aug 22, 2015)

and Chris is right....very well ventilated area and full face respirator when messing with this nasty stuff!


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## Skie_M (Aug 22, 2015)

It's possible you could get some copper foil and etch some circuits or some circuit designs on it and then apply this to a flexible substrate and then apply to your tubes to make a pen blank ....

This method would not have any components on board unless you add them yourself, and it would be bare copper all over unless you change it, but it would definitely be flexible enough.


Keep in mind, though, that you'd need a photography workshop/darkroom and the etching solution, which is some of the nastiest stuff you can get your hands on as a civilian.  This stuff will eat your hands to the bone in mere minutes.


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## vtgaryw (Aug 22, 2015)

No, flex circuits can definitely be thin enough to wrap around a pen tube.  Heck, my last company we rolled flex circuits up and potted them inside a 1.3 mm diameter tube for a sensor application.

-gary


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## mikedealer (Aug 24, 2015)

the mystery continues haha.. im still on a mission to find these boards somewhere.. have some feelers out there.. i pulled a broken blank apart and this circuit board layer was not sanded at all, it had a adhesive tan bottom (not from glue i believe)


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