Electronic Sculpture Using Tinkercad

I am very fascinated about free-form circuits and always wanted to make a electronic sculpture or free-form circuit but I was not sure how the circuit will look at the end. I have used tinkercad many times before to teach young kids electronics and 3d designing and printing. Tinkercad is the best platform beginners, hobbyists and makers to simulate electronic circuits. While working on led chaser project i used tinkercad to quickly simulate the circuit. Because it has actual appearance of the component i got an idea to try free-form circuit on tinkercad. First i tried the circuit and tested whether it is working or not. After the success, I started placing the components the way I wanted. I got an fair idea how the circuit will look after soldering. I tried basic circuits using LED's, 555 timer IC and battery. Then I built this led chasing circuit which looks like man with Bow and Arrow.

This is the best project to try if you are beginner and wants to learn the electronics. Things you will Learn:

• Basics of electronics
• Circuit designing
• Soldering

Software:

TinkerCad

Components:

1. 555 timer IC
2. 74hc595 8bit shift register
3. LED's x9
4. Resistors (100ohm x2, 1k x1, 10k x2)
5. Capacitors (10uf x2)
6. Potentiometer - 10k
7. BC547 NPN transistor
8. Breadbord
9. Jumper wires
10. Buck converter
11. 18 awg copper wire (approximately 1mm)
12. USB male connector

Tools:

• Soldering iron
• Solder wire
• Wire Stripper and cutter
• Nose plier
• double sided tape
• Multimeter

We can make this sculpture circuit without using the tinkercad but using the tinkercad has many advantages. First, we can verify whether the circuit will work or not without buying or using actual components. Second, we can arrange the components in any shape or pattern. So you can see the above images, one is the circuit with all components and another is the same circuit with same components but the shape is different. Here I have used potentiometer as a head of person, two IC's for body, capacitors for leg, resistors for hand and neck, resistors and BC547 transistor as a bow and LED's for arrow. IF you want to try simple circuit you can make a smiley using 555 timer IC and two LEDs. There are so many cool circuits you can build with 55 timer IC.

Working of the Circuit:

In the 555 Oscillator circuit above, pin 2 and pin 6 are connected together allowing the circuit to re-trigger itself on each and every cycle allowing it to operate as a free running oscillator. During each cycle capacitor, C charges up through both timing resistors, R1 and R2 but discharges itself only through resistor, R2 as the other side of R2 is connected to the discharge terminal, pin 7.

Then the capacitor charges up to 2/3Vcc (the upper comparator limit) which is determined by the 0.693(R1+R2)C combination and discharges itself down to 1/3Vcc (the lower comparator limit) determined by the 0.693(R2*C) combination. This results in an output waveform whose voltage level is approximately equal to Vcc – 1.5V and whose output “ON” and “OFF” time periods are determined by the capacitor and resistors combinations.

Astable 555 oscillator Charge and Discharge Times:

t1 = 0.693 * (R1 + R2) * C

t2 = 0.693 * R1 * C

where, R is in Ohms and C in Farads.

In the above circuit we are using R1 = 1K and R2 = 10K (potentiometer) and C = 10uf. Because of potentiometer we can change the duty cycle of the circuit and can get the fast and slow blinking effect on LED's.

On tinkercad you can try different combinations of R1 and R2 and see the effect.

Once you get the success on tinkercad, then its time to test all the components. Make a same circuit on breadboard we built using tinkercad. Use buck converter or USB supply to test the circuit. Make sure all components are working and whole circuit is also working. While building the circuit on breadboard we can try to place the components in same way we want in the final sculpture. So we can get a fair idea of how to route the wires.

Now the real fun begins. Whether you are a pro in soldering or not this step is going to test your patience. for last 1 year I was working mostly on software projects. I tried electronic project almost after a year. When I started soldering, I realized that I did not have good soldering iron but I am good at soldering so somehow I managed to do satisfactory work. In the next version I will improve soldering and wire routing. So before starting the soldering make sure you have all the tools and all are in working conditions.

I have soldered the components without using any clamp or third hand. To hold some components I used double sided tape. Even to bend and cut the copper wire I used only nose plier and cutter, nothing else. I got the good outcome at the end but I could have improved the result. So I will share some tips to get the best result.

Tips to get the best outcome:

• Use double sided tape or third hand to hold the components.
• Use brass rods of 1mm if possible because these rods are straight unlike the copper wire.
• Take print copy of tinkercad circuit in proper scale which will help you to measure the wire length between two components and cut the wire of that length.
• Make the bends wherever needed using nose pliers. You can also use 3d printed parts to bend the wire at particular angle. I am going to make some more free-form circuits so I will design some parts to make wire bending easy and perfect and I will update here.
• Make sure wires are not touching to each other. keep distance of 2mm between each wire and rout your wires according to that.
• Use multimeter to debug the circuit.

Once the routing and soldering is done, test the circuit using USB power supply. Change the led blinking speed using potentiometer. I have attached the stl file for potentiometer knob. Try different electronic circuits and use your creativity to build awesome free-form circuits. Keep tinkering and keep enjoying.