"paper circuits" and how to make them durable

blue_lu · Joined: Nov 16, 2009 Posts: 32 Location: Germany

Hi,

I am pretty new around here and just recently my nose has been tipped into ciat lonbardes paper circuits. I am really a novice to most of this, although I have finished several guitar fx builds and a wtpa sampler.

After you constructed one of peters circuits with the help of his paper overlay, how do you mount the cirucit in a case? I mean can you expect the construction (components through paper, soldered together) will stay together in a working form, or will it fall apart really easily?

So what is the best way to get these circuits to be physically stable? use hardboard? wood? wwcnd?

Thanks for your guys' help!

Uncle Krunkus · Posted: Fri Feb 12, 2010 2:49 am Post subject:

I think putting the paper overlay on a piece of perfboard, (the type with no copper, just holes) would make it as durable as any other circuit. The only issue might be if the layout was too big for a standard piece of perfboard. You could also try gluing it to a sheet of laminex, then drilling holes for the components. Any hard, thin, insulating material which could withstand the heat of soldering would do.

macumbista · Posted: Fri Feb 12, 2010 5:56 am Post subject:

Pete came over to Berlin for a workshop last summer with some really HUUUUGE paper theremin circuits he called Deerhorns (after the Jaegermeister deer, I think...).

He had people take very heavy cardboard, fold the two-sided paper circuit (making sure front and back sides lined up), wrap it around the cardboard and fix it with spray adhesive. Then they used a heavy sewing needle (need-awl) to punch holes for the components. The finished circuits looked pretty solid and hung freely from cables in the exhibition space. He also puts them on fabric panels and sews those together.

So I'd say if they are robust enough to survive outside an enclosure, they could live pretty much forever if you mounted them firmly inside one.

Only problem with doing them on perfboard would be that I don't know if Pete uses any kind of raster when designing, so the holes might not match his rather freehand approach. Kind of a metaphor for the artist himself I think Wink

blue_lu · Joined: Nov 16, 2009 Posts: 32 Location: Germany

Hi Macumbista,

great to hear about someone attending peters workshop. I am a great fan of his work the cocolase delay (now cocostuber) is one of the most out there designs I have seen to this date. unfrotunately I am not yet able to afford them, so the possibility of building something that peter came up with is a great experience to have.

so how was the workshop? did you build some small noisemakers to take home, or what was it about? do you know if there any more plans of peter doing workshops in berlin (eu)?

Thanks, Lu

p.s.: ich bin auch Berliner - momentan allerdings in fränkischem Exil!

macumbista · Posted: Fri Feb 12, 2010 6:23 am Post subject:

Hi Lu,

here's the proposal Pete sent us:

http://www.ciat-lonbarde.net/deerhorn.pdf

(Yes, it's public on his website.) The Deerhorns themselves were printed on something like A3 paper, so quite big!!!

Best im Exil!
D.

blue_lu · Joined: Nov 16, 2009 Posts: 32 Location: Germany

Thanks for the link - interesting

Uncle Krankus - thanks for the tip!

prgdeltablues · Posted: Tue Feb 16, 2010 3:02 am Post subject:

I've built a few of Pete's smaller circuits, and laboriously soaked the paper in water and removed it from the circuit - happy hours with tweezers!, I then mounted the bare circuit on hardboard using acrylic paints/paste - incorporating the electronics onto the surface of a painting. I drilled holes through the board for short lengths of brass rod - about 3mm diameter - for the contact points. Likewise mounted a speaker from the back, with a painted grille showing on the front. The wiring between circuit and contacts, and the battery, are hidden behind the painting.

Acrylic paste is a pretty good adhesive. You do have to let it dry thoroughly though - the first time I tried the circuit too soon, and it didn't work - unset acrylic has a resistance in the high k/low megaohm range! Once dry it is an insulator.

His circuits are brilliant noisemakers. I now need to find a way to incorporate them in my embryonic modular.

macumbista · Posted: Tue Feb 16, 2010 3:07 am Post subject:

@prgdeltablues:

photos, me boy! we want photos!!!!!!

Inventor · Posted: Tue Feb 16, 2010 3:32 am Post subject:

I saw these paper circuits at EM09. They were incredible. It's truly an alternative style of circuit prototyping.

Les

macumbista · Posted: Tue Feb 16, 2010 3:46 am Post subject:

Just in case anybody is at this moment thinking "WTF are they talking about???":

http://www.ciat-lonbarde.net/paper/index.html

Of course, Pete's site is pretty WTF all by itself...

blue_lu · Joined: Nov 16, 2009 Posts: 32 Location: Germany

+1 on the pics! Cool

Inventor · Posted: Wed Feb 17, 2010 2:13 am Post subject:

I like how you can soak the paper in water when you're finished, dissolving it and leaving a skeleton circuit that works! I'd like to see something like that done in three dimensions. Wow, how creative could that be?

Les

-minus- · Joined: Oct 26, 2008 Posts: 787 Audio files: 13

I agree Inventor... 3D soaked versions would be nice. I liked the mention of this paper circuit thing on your show yesterday. Would be nice perhaps to do an interview with Peter and broadcast it on your show... just a thought.

Inventor · Posted: Wed Feb 17, 2010 12:11 pm Post subject:

fluxmonkey · Joined: Jun 24, 2005 Posts: 708 Location: cleve

Posted Image, might have been reduced in size. Click Image to view fullscreen.

from peter's website. these circuits are the bee's knees!

droffset · Posted: Wed Feb 17, 2010 8:43 pm Post subject:

They sure are cool.

I've used this software to make paper models, it's fairly easy:
http://www.tamasoft.co.jp/pepakura-en/

Doing a 3D papercraft/papercircuit hybrid would be sweet.

kriista · Joined: Feb 20, 2010 Posts: 7 Location: manchester

macumbista, did you attend the workshop and make a deerhorn?

if you did, could you post pictures of the instruments. theres some components on the paper circuit that aren't explained in any of the paper circuits as to what they are, so seeing a completed one would go a long ways towards figuring that out.

thanks

macumbista · Posted: Sat Feb 20, 2010 4:27 pm Post subject:

macumbista · Posted: Sat Feb 20, 2010 4:36 pm Post subject:

OK, here's one:

Posted Image, might have been reduced in size. Click Image to view fullscreen.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/88744619@N00/3830139130/in/set-72157607850896078/

macumbista · Posted: Sat Feb 20, 2010 4:43 pm Post subject:

Tangentially, there were several really interesting folks on that workshop, called sommercampworkstation, including Jessica Rylan with some chaos generators (posted in the Ian Fritz Chaos topic) and Tore "Origami" Boe with his Acoustic Laptops (wooden boxes and found objects amplified by a contact microphone) project:

Posted Image, might have been reduced in size. Click Image to view fullscreen.

More info on Acoustic Laptops here: http://www.museumsnett.no/alias/origami/boe/2.3-010.html

kriista · Joined: Feb 20, 2010 Posts: 7 Location: manchester

He has that design on his webpage too. At least he did before. Yeah he had it up as 'euro deerhorn'.

He never made any partlists for any of the paper circuits. They are, generally, 'self-service'. The first one (lil-sidrassi) has a certain amount of explanation, but the rest just are as they are. You can make sense of them by comparing them, or reading the instructions for other things (rollz5).

I agree that he builds a sort of unclearness into the designs, which is nice. You figure it out, and you can build it. Which is why I'm posting on here, to see if anyone can chime in with what they've figured out.

I should've clarified more where I was coming from at the start, but I'm a big peter/ciat fan. Here is my collection of his instruments:

http://www.rodrigoconstanzo.com/Ciat-Lonbarde.html

macumbista · Posted: Sat Feb 20, 2010 6:02 pm Post subject:

kriista · Joined: Feb 20, 2010 Posts: 7 Location: manchester

Thank you!

prgdeltablues · Posted: Thu Feb 25, 2010 12:08 pm Post subject:

Ok, here are some pictures of my paper circuits. Some parts of a Rollz-5 - on the paper, and after stripping the paper away. Then a Lil Sidrassi embedded in an acrylic painting. The contact points are short lengths of brass rod sticking up about 15mm. Played with fingers- best when wet. The speaker is behind the red blob in the bottom left corner. The red spot on the right is a push-button on-off switch for the battery.
(Sorry about the file sizes, first go at posting images)

Peter

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kriista · Joined: Feb 20, 2010 Posts: 7 Location: manchester

That's pretty amazing. Embedding it into art like that.

I had a link to the guy who made this books cover, but I can't find it at the moment. But take a gander at this:

http://www.amazon.com/Audio-Culture-Readings-Modern-Music/dp/0826416152/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1267176933&sr=8-1

(the book cover)