Joe Cool was inspired by the designs of Charles Schulz, illustrated in his popular Peanuts comic series. The overall construction utilizes a custom handmade printed circuit board (PCB) with surface mounted white LEDs, an SMD switch, and a 3V coin cell battery providing power to the various components. The design was created using sublimation ink transferred onto white sticker paper and cut out on a vinyl cutter. The adhesive sticker is attached to an acrylic plate matching the sticker outline while both are mounted to the PCB backing using four brass standoffs and eight 3M 4mm flathead screws. The final product is designed to be used as an artistic lighting fixture that brings an ambient light to its surrounding environment. 

Below are some final shots of Joe Cool from different angles to highlight individual design aspects. 

The PCB design was created in EasyEDA by first laying out the individual components in a schematic and creating the appropriate connections between each one. Following this, the proper traces for VCC were routed and a common ground was established on the future board’s top layer. The 2D imagery of the PCB was also saved as a .pdf for creating a mask that would protect the copper during the acid-etching stage.

The next step involved using the laser-cutter to create an acrylic cover that would eventually have the sticker attached to it and be used to cover the exposed PCB.

The sticker was created from a .png of Snoopy from the internet and imported into a vinyl cutting software. Guidelines were placed around the image for later and the design was printed using sublimation ink onto transfer paper. This design was then heat transferred onto sticker paper which was loaded into a vinyl cutter and cut out using the guidelines so that the machine could locate the image. 

The PCB formation began by water-jetting a 6” x 8” copper clad board using a .gcode file created using an outline of the design saved as an .svg and imported into WazerCam.

A heat press was then used to attach a printed mask to the copper surface of the board before being dipped into acid that would etch away any unmasked areas and create the traces components would be soldered to. 

After post processing, the components were hand soldered to the custom PCB using a flux pen and lead free solder.Each light was treated before attaching the next one. A few traces were broken due to improper masking and needed to be fixed by laying a small solid core wire over the divide and solder each end to the existing traces.

The final assembly included attaching the sticker decal to the acrylic cover and using the brass standoffs and 3M 4mm flathead screws to connect these to the PCB backing.