Micro Expo

This Tuesday we had to put up a small expo at tec. It was very helpful to lay my work out and see what i had in the way of work. I also got some great ideas of the end of year expo, such as the use of the PC board pattern as an aesthetic, like i have used it here. The patterns in the four ground of the photo, are actually the internal workings of a keyboard. Each dot relates to a key on the computer keyboard. An idea that I had, was to print the patter on the wall of the gallery where i have my exhibition. Perhaps in ink that can only be seen under UV light. Then I could have a UV light scrolling across the wall, illuminating the hidden pattern. I would like to do this as an instillation, and turn the display into the final piece of the collection.

Computer Fan Belt

This is the computer case fan that i chose to use. It is a clear fan, with four electric blue LED's built in.
I wanted to make a cover plate for the fan, to protect the fan, (and your fingers)
The PC board pattern, seemed like the obvious option for a pattern. I decided to cut the cover on the Roland CNC machiene, as I would get a perfect finnish. Unfortunately the first time that I tried to cut it, I used thin pollycarbonate instead of perspex. That was a mistake because after six or so hours of cutting, the pollycarbonate heated from the friction, to the ixtent that it melted. I than recut it in perspex. Perspex has a slightly higher melting point than pollycarbonate, so I had no trouble with it melting.

Computer fan belt buckle

After the success of the keyboard belt, i was looking at some old components and decided that a computer fan belt buckle would be amazing! Of late i have been intrigued by florescent and UV colours, so thought that one of those UV fans that you get for the comp cases with clear sides would be great. Unfortunately it proved more difficult to find that i thought. For the moment i have managed to find a clear fan, that has four LEDs (in that amazing blue that i love) that light up when the fan is plugged in.

I realised that I need to put cover plates on the front and back of the fan, in order not to get your self court in in. So i am designing clear perspex covers in Rhino, which use the PC board pattern as the cut outs for air flow. These are some quick drawings from my journal, to show the basic concept.

The fan runs on twelve volts, so I'm going to have to use four of the three volt batteries that i put in the keyboard belt.