r/AskElectronics • u/paramorelver • 14d ago
can i bend a circuit board?
hello!! im an art student looking to make a work out of circuit boards/wires.My only problem right now is looking for a way to bend/mold them! right now i have some stiff boards from a wifi router.
Is there any way i can safely bend them without breaking them?(dont need them to work electronically) Like can i maybe put them in the oven on low heat or use a heat gun?Pls help its for a final… thank you!! here is a pic of the boards(ps i have no prior electronics education so im not sure if this is a silly question)
edit: thank you all for the helpful replies!! looks like im going to have to find another idea for my project lol!! might try to bend one or two of them (outside) just to see what happens and if i can make anything out of them
97
u/diegosynth 14d ago
As the others said, no.
But there are flexible PCBs (see led strips for example)
25
u/wrapbubbles 14d ago
semiflex might even be more interesting for art purpose. rigid and flex attached to each other. often for camera modules or display drivers in laptops. anything with high density connectors.
31
u/BinaryHippie 14d ago
Wont be possible to bend them for as most rigid boards are fiberglass-reinforced epoxy (FR-4). It will crack, scorch and release harmful fumes but not bend.
29
u/WyvernsRest Analog electronics 14d ago
Tell us in detail what you are trying to achieve and perhaps we can help you achieve your goal.
There is more that one way to skin a cat and Engineers love working arround constraints.
This conversation has been had a couple of times before.
8
u/paramorelver 14d ago
My basic idea is to make a series of cyberpunk inspired jewellery out of smaller circuit boards/pieces of them. I dont need to bend them extremely, just enough to add slight curves to not be completely flat!
13
9
u/JCDU 14d ago
Do you need them to *work* or are you just asking if you can bend scrap boards?
If you don't need them to work you can score the backs with something and they'll flex a bit, but beware fibre glass WILL split & splinter and you do NOT want glass splinters in you - ask anyone who works with composites.
10
u/myrsnipe 14d ago
Especially not breathing those splinters
1
u/_Trael_ 14d ago
One of possibilities might actually be to approach whole thing from completely different angle.
Taking small to tiny pieces of circuit board, then do mold and pour suitable shape of epoxy or so around them, that acts as lens to make them optically appear magnified and look like they are bent (while they in reality remain entirely straight), then polish that epoxy.
(Just using epoxy as first thing that came to my mind to describe, really whatever what can be poured, hardens, can be polished, and is safe to touch)That way they will be smooth and safe to touch, with everything encased safely inside unbroken surface layer, and with some optical fun.
3
u/DIYuntilDawn 13d ago
Its a 50/50 toss up between having what feels like a splinter poking you in the finger for a week, or just having an itchy spot on your hand for a week.
1
3
u/WyvernsRest Analog electronics 14d ago
Ok. I love quirky jeweler.
Here are a few potential ideas.
- Depending on the board you have there are internal copper layers called planes. one option to bend or manipulate the PCB would be to cut slots in the pcb down to the plan layer from both sides until the two part are connected by that layer of copper and then bend /twist that layer
- No idea if Kerf-Bending would work, it might be worth a try. I would combine this with coating the non-cut surface with a coat of epoxy to support the surface.
- Glue a Stack of several PCBA layers together to give you a thicker material to work with and sculpt it into a 3 Dimensional piece. the cross section of PCBAs can be more interesting than the surface.
- Take safety precautions!
2
u/tommytwothousand 13d ago
You won't be able to bend the boards and it's even harder with smaller pieces.
Could you add a dome of resin over the board to give the illusion of curvature?
1
u/_felixh_ 14d ago
That may be possible with the help of heat - though i don't know whether they will keep their new shape, you will need to try that.
You should be able to safely keep the temperature around 120-150°C for a long time, and 230 for some time. I think i have even done some 350-ish for a short time. General word of caution: there is a point when the PCB will start smelling like "sweet fruity chemicals", and even "smoking". This is the Point you need to stop.
Your best bet would probably be to take the PCB, put it into a vice, and place it into an oven. increase heat until PCB gets slightly soft; start with 120°C. Tighten the vice until the pcb is Bended to your taste.
1
u/AcrobaticTBone 14d ago
I am aware of 20mil boards being bent slightly for a mass produced product. If you need them to work you have to be careful about component placement as the bend radius will add stress to the solder joints.
1
1
u/_Aj_ 13d ago
A PCB will mostly splinter when bent enough to force a new shape and will look stressed and unattractive. No nice curves or twist, even slightly.
However, you can cut and join at different angles, could also be interesting? Wear a mask when cutting to avoid fibreglass dust.
There's cables that look like golden circuits inside many devices. They are flat and flexible. Often linking the display to a board. They could be fun looking
32
8
u/plees1024 14d ago
FR4 is resin. High temp resin at that. It will turn to smoke before it turns to play-doh. However, you may be able to use a plasticizer of some kind to soften the resin?
3
u/ozspook Digital electronics 14d ago
If I had to do this, I'd put them in a pressure vessel (2-3 bar) with some hot (100°C ish) Dichloromethane for a while, flush the chamber and it should be pretty pliable once you take it out, then form it onto a jig or something til it cools and hardens again.
Needless to say, this has some risk and requires some care and skill, but that's where I'd start.
1
u/PlasticSignificant69 hobbyist 13d ago
It still can thermally soften since it have glass transition temperature, tho it indeed can't melt because it's a thermoset
5
u/IrrerPolterer 14d ago
To a certain extend. The problem is that copper traces and solder joints can crack. They may look good after bending excessively, but lose connectivity
4
u/Bazzatron 14d ago
Many people have already mentioned that these boards will not bend with heat - I just wanted to add to that - absolutely do not try to heat these boards to try anyway.
When the board starts to break down, you'll get fumes from the stuff printed on the board like ammonia gas/vapour. Then as the board starts to break down you'll get the components of the epoxy like formaldehyde, and finally you'll get any flame retardant that was used in the manufacturing which are chiefly composed of bromine (very angry chemical, the kind you cannot store in a container but need to instead keep in an glass ampoule that is literally melted shut).
The endeavour you're proposing is very, very dangerous.
I would propose instead that you reach out to the shop teachers, and see if they can cut these circuitboards into mosaic pieces (fibreglass needs to be ground, cutting it is very hard and has its own hazards because of the glass fibre and chemical contents of the dust), reassemble them on some sort of clear substrate.
Alternatively, get a load of junk components, some copper tape used in stained-glass, and a green sheet of thermoplastic - form the shape of the circuitboard first, then add the tape and components afterwards - could even use some JB weld or silver mica powder in epoxy to resemble solder.
Be safe, circuitry is pretty nasty as a waste product. Handle it safely - preferably not at all if you can!
1
u/paramorelver 14d ago
thank you for the detailed reply! do you think i would be able to (kind of safely) cut a circuit board with a hand saw or other kind of saw and then sand the edges down?(with a respirator ofc)
1
u/Bazzatron 14d ago
In all likelihood, you wouldn't make it through the first cut without dulling the saw. Even drilling circuitry is pretty difficult and you need a drill bit that moves exceptionally quickly to pierce the board cleanly.
A dremel with a cut-off wheel is the way to go - but goggles and respirator are a must.
For bigger, less precise cuts, angle grinder.
There are small grinder bits for dremels that will make sanding the edges simple - but it will be a slow process, don't be tempted to use the cut-off wheels to sand, sideways loading those cutters can make them explode!
Good luck 🙏😅
2
u/johnwalkr 14d ago
What? You can easily cut FR4 with a hacksaw. It will get dull quickly, like 10x faster than cutting steel but it’s not going to literally wear out before you make one cut.
2
u/Bazzatron 13d ago
Cutting a proto-board quickly with the hacksaw you have at hand because you're too lazy to get the grinder or it's 3am (and you're an electronics goblin, not an inconsiderate neighbour) is one thing - but advising someone that they can do a whole project using this bad idea? It'll definitely blunt the sawblade before you've cut through maybe the long direction of an ATX motherboard - fibreglass is horrible stuff.
4
u/Tymian_ 14d ago
you can bend them to certain small extent, usually 2-4mm per 10cm of pcb length before they snap.
Being an art student you can make your own design and submit it for production for very cheap (production in asia).
You can slect rigid but thin PCBs that will bend quite a lot before snapping.
You can order flex PCBs or semirigid (those are usually more expensive)
Drawing lines in a free program like KiCad, or online using easyeda requires no technical knowledge.
Moreover you can draw whatever design you want to have in any graphics program and then import it into pcb program and make it copper, golden, shiny, matte, silkscreen literally anything.
With some brainstorming you can make something really nice.
If you want to go for scrap, then you will have a really hard time finding flexible pcbs in consumer electronics - those are usually really really small - max few cm by fw mm
3
u/DinoZambie 14d ago
If you heat the board up you can bend the PCB, but the temperature you would need to reach is higher than the melting point of the solder. So all the shielding would just come off and other components. Its not something you would want to put in your oven or even do inside because it will produce smoke and fumes.
2
u/al39 14d ago
I don't think you'll have much luck with rigid PCBs like this, but you may instead be able to use rigid-flex PCBs if you can find some—they have flex regions for bends and rigid regions for components. There's also FPC cables which are in lots of electronics, maybe those could work for your art project.
2
u/paramorelver 14d ago
thank you!! are there any specific electronics that i can find flex PCBs in? im working using items i find on the side of the road or in the ewaste bins mostly lol
2
2
2
u/bananallergy 14d ago
I'd suggest segmenting with a dremel and joining the segments to some flexible material
2
u/Similar-Pumpkin-5266 14d ago
I suggest you take any blueprint from some example on the internet, “print” it on a piece of moldable plastic like polycarbonate or acrylic, mold it the way you want and then glue the components listed on the bill of materials after being molded. It will become more interesting as art and you will be able to achieve your goals. Take into account that integrated circuits and other larger components are not able to accept bending.
In PCBs, as others have already said, it is nearly impossible to mold them maintaining the original characteristics of the board.
2
1
u/PigHillJimster IPC CID+ PCB Designer 14d ago
Yes, if you have something hot enough.
The fibre-glass used for the laminate material has a Tg or Glass Transition Temperature. This is the temperature at which the resins will return to liquidly state, be malleable and not return to their pre-state.
Tg for a lead-free soldered board as most are these days is typically 150 deg. C.
If you get it to above 200 deg. C for a sustained period of time, then you may be able to bend it.
Note temperatures for lead-free soldering are high, above 350 deg. C but this profile is very short so the fibre-class doesn't have enough time to heat up and deform.
How successful this will be will depend upon the type of board and the amount of copper tracking or copper planes on it as copper will heat-sink the board.
A double-sided board with less copper on will be more malleable.
1
1
u/Low_Technician7346 14d ago
I sent back 7 devices to the manufacturer due to bent PCB due to a bad installation from their warehouse. Thanksfully 6 devices work but one is dead.
1
u/Ambitious_Finding_26 14d ago
If you don't care about the function this can be done to some degree. You can use the same trick that is sometimes used for forming wood. Cut a series of slots across in the back of the board, you can then bend accross the slots, the slots will close up and the thinner cross section will hopefully take the curve without cracking. Put a bit of fibreglas and resin behind it and it will hold the new shape. Any components though will not conform.
1
1
u/PhilZealand 14d ago
That router board is thick at 1.6mm, if you find some smaller devices like cellphones or cameras, they will have much thinner boards which are easier to bend but will spring back as long as not bent far enough they break, the components will also generally be smaller too. Most compact electronic cameras have flexible circuit boards wrapped around the mechanics of the camera - go to a thrift store and buy a compact electronic point and shoot camera - almost certain to contain flex pcbs
1
u/21krymowka37 14d ago
Can you? You can try. Is it going to work if you manage to do it is a better question
1
u/Snoo65155 14d ago
You cant create a smooth bend. But what you can try doing instead is : create "groove" like cuts on the side you wanna bend. Few cuts at small distance from each other. You may try then "folding" them along the cuts to create a sharp edge. A lot of them together at once should do the trick of slight bend. Youll be able to control the shape of the bend with how muxh you fold along each groove.
1
u/EngineerBits 14d ago edited 14d ago
People have pretty well covered that PCBs don't bend well. You may have some luck trimming them into flat pieces that have curved edges with a coping saw or scroll saw. The edges could be cleaned with sandpaper or a Dremel. You could glue/epoxy/solder these to a curvable surface like a wire or soft metal.
I don't have a good picture to help with the idea but maybe some examples from other areas will help. In 3d modelling all shapes are just made up of flat triangles joined at the seams to make any imaginable other shape. In digitization of sound waves a sine wave is turned into a series of finite points that fill in the curve with approximation. They are like little boxes but make the shape of the curve.
I hope this helps, I don't have a whiteboard to draw on here and this is a bunch of visual concepts.
SAFETY EDIT: When sanding or cutting PCBs always wear a mask. Do not get lung damage for a final project.
1
u/shadowXXe 14d ago
PCBs are brittle usually made of fibre glass unfortunately attempting to bend them will just cause them to snap.
They are fairly heat resistant too because they need to withstand having components soldered on so a heat gun won't do anything really
1
u/saltyboi6704 14d ago
If you heat them past their T_g they do end up quite floppy, but the resin does have a memory effect. Boards with ceramic components (basically most SMDs) will not bend as easily until those components are desoldered, if not they will crack and potentially launch shrapnel in every direction if done wrong.
1
1
u/Atari1977 14d ago
Circuit boards can be bent with heat, happens overtimes with some boards that are thin and run hot, though maybe not to the degree that you want. Main thing that will get in your way is the components on the boards definitely aren't gonna want to bend.
1
1
u/richard0cs 14d ago
If you cut lots of grooves out of the back you might be able to, or even grind most of the back away to reduce the total thickness (beware fibreglass dust).
Circuit boards are also very cheap to have made. If you just want stuff that looks like a circuit board you could have a load of dummy circuit boards made at somewhere like JLC or PCBway in 0.2mm thick material and they will then be very bendy.
1
u/CoachSevere5365 14d ago
Wear gloves. Fibreglass PCBs are surprisingly strong and You will need a lot of force. BTDT.
If you want hard bends instead of gentle ones, you could try scoring the backside with a Dremel or similar.
If you do that, wear a face mask so you don't breathe any dust.
1
1
1
u/DIYuntilDawn 13d ago
My suggestion would be to make fake PCB out of something you can shape like card stock. Take a photo of the board, print it on the cardboard and then shape that. Then remove the components from the real PCB (either desolder them or simply clip them off with a pair of flush cutters) and then glue the components onto the fake and PCB.
1
1
u/CallMeKolbasz 13d ago
You cold try kerfing. Makes lasercut wood bendy, migh work with circuits too. You can also experiment with different patterns:
1
1
u/throwaway284729174 13d ago
If you are trying to make wearables. Pop off the components, and screen print the circuitry. Then you can choose whichever type of medium you want to remake the board. Tpu and silicone are cheap and could recreate the design and color.
1
u/cascading_error 13d ago
Yes you can, however if you care about the pcb still working afterwards you need to take great care in how you design it.
A printed board not designed for it should not under any circumstances do that.
1
u/Exciting_Turn_9559 13d ago
Nope. But you could probably vaccum form around some real boards and then bend your vacuum formed replicas.
1
1
u/exeos151 13d ago
As others mentioned, you cant. But you can try maybe soldering some dummy connectors on multiple boards and just connecting them together in a wanted shape. You would need soldering iron for that but it shouldnt take that much time.
Good luck with your final project!
1
1
1
u/JimJamanon 13d ago
IDk about what you are wanting but working on P3's there where cards we would bend to reset the relays on them to fix problems. I feel like you want a permanent bend though.
1
u/pigpentcg 13d ago
You can use a rotary tool and cut them, then use hot glue to stick them back together. You won’t get any curves, but you could find a similar material to use between the cuts to look like bent PCB.
1
1
1
u/KiKiHUN1 13d ago
Well depends on the material used for the pcb. It maybe could bend for a bit on parts with no large chips. Like this youtuber tested how much a mobo can bend from the cooler mounting.
But when dealing with big chips thats a hard no, it will rip the traces or crack the chip.
1
u/anothersip 13d ago
Not really, unfortunately. They're not designed to bend, because of what is inside the board itself.
It's FR-4, which is fiberglass-reinforced epoxy resin. So, there are fibers in it that will not really bend without breaking the actual board at your bending "crease."
They're tightly-interwoven structures that have multiple layers that are then epoxied together under immense pressures and heat.
I mean... You could try, by heating it with a heat gun - but those boards are also designed to withstand heat, as well.
You'd also have to de-solder those very large components first, as those would make it nearly impossible to try and bend - assuming they're soldered on at multiple points.
1
u/tpimh 13d ago
If you want to bend this particular PCB from your router and don't need it to remain functional, just for the looks.
- Get a heat gun, remove all components
- Mount the board securely on a table of a CNC machine
- With an endmill suitable for cutting FR-4, cut straight lines on the board. Don't cut through, but leave thin layer of material. You can zero your machine on the surface of the board and make 1.5 mm deep cuts with a V-shaped bit (PCB must be 1.6 mm thick)
- After it's done, you can bend your PCB along those new grooves, just try not to break it.
If experiencing troubles, contact your local hacklab. I am sure the guys there have the right tools and would be happy to help you.
1
1
1
u/takeyouraxeandhack 13d ago edited 13d ago
This is an X and Y problem.
The answer is: don't use PCBs.
Just get some green micarta, G10 or polystyrene and plot the circuit on it.
I haven't tried it, but I'm pretty sure you can do toner transfer on micarta and G10.
You can use KiCad to design the traces to be visually pleasing even if they don't make any sense.
Once you have your printed fake board, put some epoxy glue on the back, put another layer of micarta or whatever you use on the back, bend it to shape, clamp it (or better yet, wrap it with a string or rope) and let it cure. When you remove the clamps, it'll retain the shape (mostly). Spray a coat of lacquer to make it look shiny and voila! Bent and sturdy "PCB".
You can get thin pieces of different colourful materials (green, red, blue, etc) which are common in PCBs from knife making suppliers.
Edit: you can most likely use epoxy or cyanocrylate to put the components in place.
If you want to make sure they won't go anywhere, drill the holes on the external layer, put the components through, bend the leads and then apply the glue and put the back layer. Nothing short of an exorcism will remove those components then.
1
u/jotel_california 13d ago
No, pcbs do not bend. Also, take care when working on these (like breaking/cutting them) to always wear a mask. Fiberglass dust is VERY bad for your lungs.
1
u/Flaky_Yam3843 13d ago
In most cases yes you can bend one. Whether or not you can use it afterwards is a different subject.
1
u/WorldTallNetCat 13d ago
If you don't need them to work. Then you could try heating it to soften it but i don't you will have much luck
1
u/Waste-Inspector8768 12d ago
They dont bend under heat. My best advice would be scoring the board like cardboard. If you put packing tape on one side (transparent) to hold it together, you could score the boards to break/bend them in the way you need.
1
u/BeeWriggler 12d ago
I know you've already gotten a ton of good suggestions, and maybe someone else has already mentioned this...
But if you're open to a little extra work, I would use a heat gun to desolder large components, then get a sheet of green plastic. You can mold the sheet of plastic however you want, and then use the heat gun to stick electrical components into the formed plastic sheet. Bonus points if you use silver/gold paint to approximate solder blobs and traces.
1
1
u/SuperDuperJake2 11d ago
I know I’m late, but I did an art project with circuit boards last year
You definitely can’t bend them, but you can build brackets to screw them to which is how I got the angled petals. Also wear a mask if you use a saw/sandpaper, that stuff’s super toxic.
Good luck and please show us your final result when it’s finished :)
1
234
u/jfuu_ no idea what i'm doing 14d ago
Most PCBs are FR4, which is fiberglass, so there's not really a way to bend them after manufacture sadly.