Boldport Club Project #2 — the tiny 'engineer superhero' emergency kit, second edition
This started it all, a PCB business card.
It all started when in search for a unique design twist almost three years ago I experimented with embedding through-hole components inside of the PCB itself. Researching this, I found that other than the slots that sometimes cost extra, there's nothing preventing me from achieving this with a standard manufacturing process. I then made the "engineer's emergency business card", which got a very positive response [Hackaday | HackerNews].
The first edition kit
This response led me to create my first ever kit, "the tiny 'engineer superhero' emergency kit, first edition", spiced up with a tale of where an engineer might use it
It's meant to be an engineer's emergency kit. When all hope is lost, the MacGuyver engineer could snap out one of the components and save the day. Recall the countless times you desperately needed a 1 KOhm resistor to fix an amplifier at a party, only to see the person you were trying to impress slip away with an OCaml programmer? Never again with this little kit.
It's a functional circuit. When you apply voltage the LED turns on, and the solder wire bit is part of this circuit.
Another new 'thing' was gently laser etching a compressed cellulose sponge so that when wet expands to fit the tin the kit arrives in and can be used to clean a soldering iron as one is soldering.
This kit is special because — other than the in-circuit components, visuals, and sponge — it's the kit through which I learned a lot about kitting and selling kits. I felt that it would be great to send members of the Boldport Club the second edition of this kit, and in this way share this first experience that eventually led me to start the Club.
This 'second edition' comes in a black tin can and has new two-tone visuals. Next week I'll be sending these kits to Club members, and all of those who joined the Club by the cut-off date of April 9th will receive a second one as a gift for their support! Sign up here.
The second edition has a two-tone visuals, using soldermask at places.
The sponges for this kit were supplied by our friends at Oomlout — who are also enthusiastic members and supporters of the Boldport Club. The PCBs were manufactured by Eurocircuits. And, as usual, the design is open source hardware, and is available at our GitHub repository. A full album of the kit is here.
Could this little kit save your career?!