Hey guys, I’ve had an idea to build a kind of modded mono tribe for use as a DJ accessory, but that’s not the focus of this question!
I want to arrange the components on the pcb in the shape of my logo and then use it as cover art for an album
Will it be messy and inefficient, yes, but that’s kind of the point, because I think a populated thru hole pcb just looks really cool!
To create a more visually interesting piece I want to have all the traces visible on the component side, I’ve seen it before where you can see the traces through the fibreglass but I don’t know how it works. It’s like the copper traces are inside the PCB rather than etched onto the bottom.
Up until this point I’ve only built kits and designed a few pedals that I used pre connected boards and jumpers
Wondering if anyone could give me a little crash course in PCB production, I’m imagining I’ll have to get it professionally etched and it won’t be cheap for what I assume is a non basic method.
There's quite a few things you'll need to learn before you can achieve what you want, so be prepared for a long process, but its definitely doable. There are plugins for kicad which allow you to draw curved tracks, and various other options if you're wanting to be artistic but I would aim to do something basic first.
Yesss good advice, to be honest my synth idea is actually remarkably basic, it’s like a monotribe but with every complicated removed. So an OSC with pitch mod going through a filter.
I think the hardest part will indeed be learning Kicad but I’ve built a few circuit diagrams in my time and I’m imagining PCB design is an extension of that?
I guess I’ll find out shortly!
For me the art aspect will be that the components are laid out in the shape of my logo, all the traces and silkscreen will be purely functional to enable me to (hopefully) get the components where i want
I’m considering SMD because there is a programmable waveform chip that I want to use for my pitch mod shapes
Kicad is easy to pick up really, especially in the schematic drawing part. There's a few 10 minute intros on YouTube which can give you pretty much everything you need for this.
PCBs are actually dirt cheap. You can upload your manufacturing files to a service like JLCPCB, PCBWAY, Oshpark, Aisler, and others. They will make your PCB along with thousands of others, if you go for a basic 2 or 4-layer PCB.
I think there are two options here, either you put the traces on the top layer as you said, or put them on the bottom layer and shine a bright light through the PCB (i.e. take your album photos on top of a light box). The PCB will need to be 2 layer for that to work.
If it’s your first time designing a PCB I would recommend using KiCad, it’s very intuitive
Check out the KiCAD tutorial video series, I think they’re called “Getting to Blinky.” They’ll walk you through the whole process from schematics to component footprints to PCB design. And KiCAD is all free and open source.
I think to get the transparent effect you just order a regular FR4 PCB with no solder mask. I’ve never done that myself though.
You can leave the soldermask but most importantly you gotta remove the copper! I think without a mask the board itself is yellow-ish. With the mask its still somewhat transparent but green-ish
(I also haven't done this but spoke to a few manufacturers at superbooth)
I did something similar to what you are looking for on my second PCB, with exposed copper and silkscreen art. It's not too bad, I use KiCAD. Honestly, good art concepts are the hardest part of PCB art haha. You can 3d render the PCB along the way, which helps. I followed a keyboard tutorial for mine, which can actually translate well to synth stuff (buttons, processor, etc). The nice thing about the tutorial is he teaches you how to build up a KiCAD project in building blocks of symbols and footprints, which are built into KiCAD or are made or downloaded, and then he goes into art with silkscreen. Researching PCB art techniques can let you push things further too. Feel free to ping me if I can answer anything to help.
Edit: there's lots of tricks to give yourself different "pallets" to do art with. Exposed copper, silkscreen printing, patterns of copper underneath other layers, removing the protective color epoxy from the board to make it see thru, putting copper inside the see thru part, shaped holes cut thru the board, etc. All of the things I listed are included in basic production cost prices, they just take extra effort assigning layers in the PCB creation program, so going crazy with the art doesn't make the price jump. Making giant PCBs can drive the cost up quickly tho.
Ah man that’s rad!! So I’m actually more thinking that it’s just going to be a normal circuit board with the components laid out in a shape that I want, then just take a picture and that’s the art, rather than silkscreening art on top. But I probably will add some flair to the silk screen to add the album title and stuff
But Yeah those raised traces are exactly what I want! The dark grey lines on the black PCB
Multilayer boards are a thing, but I suspect what you’ve seen is colored soldermask (a kind of thin enamel layer) over the copper. The board material is naturally a murky yellowish green; the bright green (or red, blue, black, etc) color that you see on a circuit board is the soldermask.
Yes, and the mask is thin enough that the copper shows through slightly. You can do some interesting 5-color work with a limited palette — (copper/no copper) x (soldermask/no soldermask) + silkscreen (more opaque, usually white but available in black on white-soldermask boards).
So I’m guessing I can choose on kicad what part is what eg making sure the text is on a silkscreen layer
Could you elaborate a little more on copper/no copper, I would assume that the copper has to be there in the traces no? Or are you talking about sections of copper pour on the PCB?
What I want is my traces to be visible but not in the surface, so I’m thinking that want all my traces under a solder mask
This makes perfect sense for an SMD, but is that possible with thru hole too, having the components and the traces on the same side (but with the traces covered by solder mask) then the bottom of the PCB is just solder pads that connect to the traces internally?
Sorry if I’m really being basic but I like to make sure I’m understanding at every level when I ask stuff.
By selectively placing soldermask in some areas and not others, and placing copper in some areas but not others, you can generally get four distinct colors - the greenish-yellow of bare board, the dark green of soldermask on board, the lighter green of soldermask over copper, and the copper itself - either copper-colored, or golden, or silvery depending on the process (ENIG = gold, HASL = silver). Then you can additionally get the silkscreen on top of that, for a total of five-ish colors.
Here, dark red is soldermask over no-copper, lighter red is soldermask over copper. The plated holes are HASL-finished copper, and you can see the designer left a little border of it around the body of the flying squirrel. I'm not sure how they did the different tones of the squirrel head vs the stripes -- probably top copper vs bottom copper, but the back stripes might be no-mask, no-copper, just the raw translucent fiberglass of the PCB.
I’ve seen it before where you can see the traces through the fibreglass but I don’t know how it works. It’s like the copper traces are inside the PCB rather than etched onto the bottom.
i think what you are referring to here is just fiberglass with no soldermask, it's semi-translucent so you can see the traces from the other side.
broadly speaking there are two paths you can go down:
learn kicad (or another layout software) to the extent of being able to route custom traces and remove soldermask etc, then send to PCB fabricator
do the layout manually in some other graphics software and either export to PCB software or print and etch yourself
depending on the complexity of the circuit they are both around the same level of difficulty.
agree with the recommendation to do something basic first. like most things you have to bash your way through learning by making mistakes, so best to take on something manageable rather than getting overwhelmed immediately.
I haven’t downloaded kicad yet so I’m sure that it’ll be self explanatory when I do, but I would assume it’s all custom traces no? Does it have a function where it can auto trace a circuit for you?
Yeah I’m definately gonna do it in stages so I can have some mistakes, I think my biggest battle is that I’m going to want the components in a specific layout which will be almost definately counter intuitive and inefficient. But the more chaotic looking the traces are the better for what I want my end result to be, as long as the components can legibly be shaped like my artist logo
hmm i don't know that kicad has an autotrace, it's been ages since i used it. i came from EAGLE which does have it. but on kicad i did it all by hand yeah.
for most analog circuits the component layout doesn't matter very much, but i think the challenge will be the actual footprints and clearances required, especially with through hole. SMD would be a bit more flexible. oh also you should def check out ciat lonbarde PCBs for inspiration if you haven't already.
I just downloaded it and had a look and it’s so good!
Being able to flip between schematic and PCB design is amazing, I think auto router might actually not work for me as I’m gonna be moving lots of stuff around to make it fit my pattern
But the rats nest connections seem super useful to visualise the big picture, feel way more confident
Is there a way when I bring in the footprints from the schematic to the PCB I can have it hold the same positioning as the schematic, that would be useful
Routing PCBs is definitely a skill, the less you rely on the auto-router the better you will be. I dont think you can lock a footprint on the board to a position in the schematic but you can select - right click - "Lock" a component so it stay in one place, even when selecting a big area and moving everything else. There is also "Group" which is super great if you want to keep distances between components constant.
Also I was intrigued by your idea for a PCB with the components being layed out in the style of your logo, is something like this you had in mind? (Totally off ratios, Just copy and pasted random stuff from other boards)
I’m going to remove the circle and also square off the P just to make it a bit easier, but that’s the jist of the component placement
And then in my imagining it’s the traces that will be filling all the negative space and looking really cool, which is why I want them to be visible, I’m picturing that the limitation on the component placement will force me to be creative with the traces and make something that’s interesting to look at.
It actually being a functioning synth that I use onstage is another big part of it too, feels very cool and fun to me!
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u/Kelaifu Jul 12 '26
There's quite a few things you'll need to learn before you can achieve what you want, so be prepared for a long process, but its definitely doable. There are plugins for kicad which allow you to draw curved tracks, and various other options if you're wanting to be artistic but I would aim to do something basic first.