PCB Map Art | Robopenguins
Robopenguins
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Jonathan<br>Author of Robopenguins
PCB Map Art
I used a free PCB sponsorship as an excuse to build the biggest board I’ve ever designed. I turned it into a living map of my family.
To my great surprise, PCBWay reached out and offered to cover the manufacturing costs for a board in exchange for a mention on this hallowed blog. While I’ve avoided monetizing this blog in any way (including removing analytics), it turns out I’m not incorruptible when presented with an excuse to design a giant PCB. As you’ll probably be able to tell from the rest of the article, PCBWay had no involvement itself in the project or write up beyond agreeing to manufacture it.
I like using constraints as inspiration, and I wanted to build something that took advantage of the PCB medium itself.
All of the designs and source code for this project can be found at: https://github.com/axlan/pcb-map
While I don’t think I rushed the project, I did try to move faster than usual. With a new baby in the house, project time could sometimes feel borrowed, either from my family or from my already limited sleep. Still, making things is important to me, and in its own way, this project became a form of self-care. In some places that tradeoff worked out well. In others, not so much. See the Improvements section for the consequences of moving a little too quickly.
Previous PCB Designs
Brainstorming
High Level Design
Making the PCB
PCB Design
PCB Manufacturing
Software
LED Matrix Driver
Network Discover Provisioning and Configuration
Simulator
Python Controls
device-setup
control-server
Results
PCB Solar Light
Full Application
Improvements
Hardware
Software
Previous PCB Designs
As a kid doing hacky electronics projects, having a custom PCB made felt like an unimaginable luxury. It was exciting when I got to college and was able to get a discount on manufacturing a board for my final project (a persistence of vision display). Even then, I still ended up making the second of the two boards the project needed myself using toner transfer and ferric acid copper etching.
More recently, I made a little game handheld that could play snake or track the state of a Magic the Gathering game. Here, I had fun adding some decorative flourishes and got to practicing using a modern KiCad version.
Brainstorming
While I knew I wanted the PCB itself to be the centerpiece, I went through a long list of ideas before settling on one.
I spent some time specifically looking at other PCB art projects. There’s a lot of beautiful stuff out there. One site I found particularly interesting was Boldport. In particular, https://boldport.com/blog/2013/09/the-lifegame.html reminded of my recent wedding project. They actually have a whole design tool for PCB art https://github.com/boldport/pcbmode which I looked into. Unfortunately, it seems like the site and the tool haven’t really been active for a few years.
Another PCB art project that inspired me was https://chaijiaxun.com/blog/pcb-metro-map-build-log/. The author created meticulous transit maps as PCBs with light animations.
These two projects both dealt with illuminating PCB’s from the back. I used them as points of reference as I settled on my own design. The creator of the PCB Metro Map Chai Jia Xun in particular spent a lot of effort on perfecting his approach. He ended up shining light through the via holes in the board, coloring them with paper, and using a printed mask to avoid light leaking between holes.
With my prior art research done, I focused on coming up with my own design.
My default instinct for an interesting display project is always to turn it into a clock. I explored designs that combined static PCB artwork with dynamic elements like LEDs, LCDs, e-ink panels, and seven-segment displays. I considered building a traditional clock, a calendar, and even an orrery. But the more I explored those ideas, the more conventional they felt. I wanted something stranger and more personal.
In the end, the most interesting direction was a display that reflected the daily rhythms of my family in real time.
Of course, this takes inspiration from the “Weasley family clock” from Harry potter. Many people have made beautiful projects recreating the clock, and a few that incorporate the electronics to make it function like in the books as well. To put my own spin on it, I decided to combine the idea with the PCB Metro Map to make the display a map.
High Level Design
First, I had to settle a few basic layout questions:
What geographic area should the map cover?
Should the map be contiguous, or split into multiple regions?
Should it include zoomed-in sections?
How would I indicate which family member was which? Would I need RGB LEDs to create distinct colors?
I also considered an approach where a row of circles along the bottom of the board would call out points of interest like home or school, with lines connecting them back to...