Sugar Skull Book is Complete

I embedded a switch, Attiny85, and a 3V coin cell battery.

This is the front view of the front cover.

After doing quite a few sugar skull prototypes, I have finally used the design in a book binding project!  I plan to fill this 8 X 8 inch journal with pictures of my parents and momentos from Arizona.

Something that worked well here was using a copper-colored acrylic ink to paint around the artwork, rather than leaving the Canson mixed media paper a boring white. Sealing the colored pencil sketch with acrylic gel medium gives the cover an additional glow.


While I am generally happy with the way that this book turned out, I've concluded that I may need to use a thicker binder's board if my goal is to do an elegant job of hiding a recessed battery.

In this model, the majority of my focus was on getting the artwork to line up with the circuit. If I could go back and do it all over, I would position the hole for the battery another half inch away from the corner to provide more wiggle room for creating a flap to conceal it.


I had fun soldering the LEDs to the copper tape, but one of the LEDs that I selected for the eyes stopped working after I sewed the signatures into the book!

After bending the cover a bit, it worked again, but now my front cover has a slight bend to it.

I wish the hole for the battery was further from the corner!

   

This is the back view of the front cover.

Here's how I laid out my circuit.

The inside features a variety of different papers; I plan to decorate them later.

Peach and Purple Book with Embedded Paper Circuitry in Cover

The video above features my latest blinged-out book, a Coptic-bound journal with embedded paper circuitry components and hand-painted watercolor covers.

This is my second attempt to hide and embed the components inside of a book cover.  This iteration worked better than my first (the sparkling Sea Turtle), because I figured out that I could put the finished covers into a book press to keep them from warping if I placed a folded dishtowel between the covers and pressing boards.

Here are the guts of the front cover.  I cut holes for the microprocessor, switch, and battery.

Like the Sea Turtle book, I embedded a switch into the front cover.  While it doesn't look too intrusive, I'd like to figure out a more elegant way to do this.  I'd also like to design a book and a cover that actually tell some sort of story.

The last time I attempted a binding like this (with an embedded circuit), I discovered that there wasn't enough tension on the inside cover flap to keep the copper leads in contact with the battery.  I got around that this time by using an adhesive-backed magnet.  I think that a super thin piece of strong velcro would work equally well. You may notice that I also soldered copper disks to the positive and negative leads to ensure a better electrical connection.

Puttering with Paper Circuits: The Sea Turtle Book is Finished

My Completed Book!

  

This is the first book that I've made, integrating an Attiny85 into the design!  To see an explanation of how I constructed the circuit, you may visit an earlier blog post.

I cut out parts of the cover board to inlay the microprocessor, a battery, and a switch. As predicted, the front cover is a bit lumpy.  I'm not sure how durable it will be, considering I did not inlay the copper tape or LEDs.

I sewed the covers using a Coptic stitch.

While I am happy that the experiment worked, especially the switch, I am still trying to come up with a work-around that allows access to the battery. While there is currently a flap of paper on the inside of the cover that leads to the battery, there isn't enough tension on the copper tape connections to eliminate the need for a paper clip.

Although the thin white watercolor paper allows the lights to shine through, I am not a huge fan of the way that the colored pencil looks.  I added a glitter glaze to try to jazz it up, but I am still craving deeper colors. This is a sentiment shared by my daughter, for whom I made this book.

I'm wondering whether I might next try cutting a hole in a more vibrant cover material and attempting to hide the circuit with a tissue paper collage.

FLOG ALERT:
I had a great deal of difficulty in the early stages of creating the circuit.  Because I used a copper tape that doesn't have a conductive adhesive backing, I had to do a lot of soldering.  Because I inadvertently missed some wonky connections early on, I had to spend a great deal of time problem-solving in order to fix the resulting breaks in the voltage flow.  I really need to learn how to use my multimeter!

I need a better way to conceal the battery, while allowing access to it.