We’ll admit it. The closer a project is to completion, the less enthusiasm we have for it. Once the main design is clearly going to work on a breadboard, we’re ready to move on to the next one. We don’t mind the PCB layout, especially with modern tools. However, once the board is done, you have to do the case. Paradoxically, this was easier in the old days because you just picked some stock box, drilled some holes, and while it looked terrible, it was relatively easy.

Today, the bar is much higher. You’ll probably 3D print or laser cut an enclosure. If it looks no better than what you did in the 1970s, you won’t win many admirers. We routinely cover projects that could easily pass for commercial products. So how do you do it?

The Parts

The enclosure may even be the easy part. There are plenty of scripts and generators that will make you a nice box that meets your specifications. You can probably even get the holes made as you build. Back in the day, it was a challenge to cut odd-shaped holes for things like serial port connectors. Now, no problem. The printer or laser will just make a hole with any shape you like. You may even want to try a new angle on 3D printing.

Mounting the PCB isn’t that hard, either. With 3D printing, you can create standoffs, but even if you laser cut, you can easily use conventional standoffs. In a pinch, we’ve used long bolts with nuts.

The real problem, it seems to us, is the front panel. Only Star Trek can get away with front panels containing a bunch of knobs and dials with no markings. And although we call them “front” panels, sometimes you need markings on the back or even the sides, too.

Front Panel Options

There are companies that will make front panels for you, and those are usually silk-screened with legends. You could, of course, silk screen yourself if you have the ability to do that. What are your other options?
Labels can’t match a laminated cover.
Labels aren’t going to cut it anymore. However, you can use rub on letters if you are very careful. We’ve used water slide paper — the same kind you see in model kits. You can find water slide paper that will run through computer printers.

Another option is to do the toner transfer trick you often see for PCBs, but use it on your front panel. Since that takes heat, it isn’t going to work on 3D-printed panels, though. For that matter, you can just use a PCB as a front panel and then make it the same way you make other boards. Silk screening is easy, then, and here’s a secret: you can make PCBs with no copper on them at all! You can even use them for the entire enclosure.

We have seen good-looking laminated color prints that look better than labels. If you don’t want to do your own printing, sign companies can print Dibond aluminum, which works well. You can laser engrave acrylic and fill the engraved areas with ink or wax for contrast or even use a two-tone material made for laser etching.

The video below uses multicolor 3D printing to create custom panels in a way we haven’t seen before. These panels go in an airplane simulator and are made to have good visibility in different lighting conditions.

youtube.com/embed/WIdHBMIfGhQ?…

Over To You…

What’s your go-to method for creating marks on panels? When do you go through the trouble? After all, if you are building a one-off piece of gear for your own use, maybe a label maker is all you really need. Let us know in the comments. The good news is that there are many ways to make great-looking panels now. The bad news is now we are expected to make them!

[Ben Krasnow] of the Applied Science channel recently released a video demonstrating his process for getting copper-plated traces reliably embedded into sintered nylon powder (SLS) 3D printed parts, and shows off a variety of small test boards with traces for functional circuits embedded directly into them.

Here’s how it works: The SLS 3D printer uses a laser to fuse powdered nylon together layer by layer to make a plastic part. But to the nylon powder, [Ben] has added a small amount of a specific catalyst (copper chromite), so that prints contains this catalyst. Copper chromite is pretty much inert until it gets hit by a laser, but not the same kind of laser that sinters the nylon powder. That means after the object is 3D printed, the object is mostly nylon with a small amount of (inert) copper chromite mixed in. That sets the stage for what comes next.

The results are durable as well; the effort needed to tear a battery holder off being at least as much as for a regular FR4 PCB.
Activating the copper chromite is all about dumping enough energy into the particles, and that gets done with a pulsed laser. This is how the traces are “drawn” onto the printed object, and these traces will be copper-clad in the next step.

Once the copper chromite catalyst is activated by the second laser, the whole 3D printed object is put into a chemical bath for electroless copper plating. Again, only the places hit by the pulsed laser end up plated. Places not hit by the second laser remain inert.

There’s an interesting side note here. Electroless copper plating is a well understood process used by every PCB manufacturer in the world. But the recipes are all proprietary and [Ben] tried without success to mix up an effective batch. In the end, a talk with OpenAI’s ChatGPT helped crack the case by suggesting a procedure that worked, saving [Ben] a ton of time. Skip to 8:10 in the video if you want to know all about that.

The result is a 3D printed nylon object into which solder-able copper traces are well and truly embedded. The test pieces work out great, but even better, there’s no reason the objects and traces even have to be planar. All it would take is a pulsed laser able to focus on a curved surface in order to create curved traces on a 3-dimensional part.

We’ve seen copper-plated 3D printed PCBs before, but this is something very different and really elegant. The whole workflow has a lot of moving parts, but once controlled it’s remarkable repeatable.

[Ben] has actually tried putting copper traces on SLS printed parts before, but with only limited success. Recent advances in technology and tools have really made the process sing. Watch it all in action in the video, embedded below.

youtube.com/embed/UIqhpxul_og?…

Ieri, 19 giugno, il noto criminale informatico IntelBroker ha postato sul forum degli hacker BreachForums una violazione, sostenendo che i sistemi di T-Mobile, una delle più grandi società di telecomunicazioni al mondo, sono stati recentemente compromessi e che molti dati riservati sono stati violati.

IntelBroker, noto per i suoi attacchi informatici contro DC Health Link, General Electric, HP Enterprise, Five Eyes, Europol e, più recentemente, AMD e Apple, afferma di vendere “codice sorgente, file SQL, immagini, dati Terraform, certificati t-mobile.com e programmi Silo.”.

Per confermare le sue parole, l’hacker ha pubblicato degli screenshot con diritti di amministratore sul server Confluence e sui canali Slack interni dell’azienda.

Il colosso delle telecomunicazioni ha rapidamente negato le accuse di hacking e furto del codice sorgente: “I sistemi T-Mobile non sono stati compromessi. Stiamo indagando attivamente su un possibile problema con un fornitore di servizi di terze parti.”

L’azienda ha inoltre sottolineato di non aver trovato alcuna prova di una fuga di dati dei clienti o di codice sorgente e che le affermazioni dell’aggressore circa l’accesso all’infrastruttura aziendale non erano vere. È possibile che i dati forniti dall’hacker siano in realtà vecchi screenshot dell’infrastruttura T-Mobile ospitati su server di terze parti, da dove sono stati rubati.

Recentemente, IntelBroker ha segnalato molti nuovi hack. In effetti ce ne sono così tanti che si può supporre che tutti i dati siano stati ottenuti da un’unica fonte. Una fonte del genere potrebbe essere SnowFlake, che in precedenza ha subito un attacco informatico su larga scala ai conti dei suoi clienti, colpendo almeno 165 aziende.

Comunque sia, scopriremo la verità più avanti, ma questa non è la prima volta che T-Mobile indaga su potenziali compromissioni dei dati. Il caso con IntelBroker è stato il terzo negli ultimi due anni.

Così, nel gennaio 2023, l’azienda ha denunciato il furto dei dati personali di 37 milioni di clienti. E nel maggio 2023 si è saputo di una fuga di dati di centinaia di clienti, durata più di un mese, a partire dal febbraio di quell’anno.

L'articolo IntelBroker rivendica un attacco a T-Mobile! Possibile attacco in supply-chain a SnowFlake? proviene da il blog della sicurezza informatica.

The next European Commission should carry out a review of its digital rulebook mid-term and revise the Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD), says an internal briefing document seen by Euractiv.

euractiv.com/section/platforms…

The draft law to detect and remove online child sexual abuse material (CSAM) was removed from the agenda of Thursday's (20 June) meeting of the Committee of Permanent Representatives (COREPER), who were supposed to vote on it.

euractiv.com/section/law-enfor…

Uno scritto davvero interessante, prepotente e sincero senza freni e rivelatore, per uno scrittore fra i più interessanti dello spaghetti weird. @L’angolo del lettore

iyezine.com/michele-borgogni-t…

Michele Borgogni - Terror Supermarket

Michele Borgogni - Terror Supermarket - Terror Supermarket: Michele Borgogni iper realista e descrive cosa potrebbe succedere in un supermercato se cadessero le flebili barriere ipocrite - Terror Supermarket

^{Massimo Argo (In Your Eyes ezine)}

Questo Memories Have Faces esce a quasi dieci anni di distanza da Inside Out Your Mind, ultimo vagito su trentatré della band, dimostrandosi, a mio modesto avviso, ancora superiore al suo già di per sé brillantissimo predecessore;  a riprova, se mai ce ne fosse bisogno, di come passione, competenza e sacro fuoco non abbandonino chi di certe sonorità si è reso uno dei più credibili e quotati alfieri.

@Musica Agorà

iyezine.com/the-loons-memories…

The Loons - Memories Have Faces

The Loons - Memories Have Faces - The Loons - Dream In Jade Green - The Loons

^{Il Santo (In Your Eyes ezine)}

Ad ulteriore dimostrazione di quanto ho scritto in occasione delle sue precedenti uscite, i nove pezzi di questo nuovo album si aprono con suggestioni tra il deserto e lo spazio infinito di Dirty Ground passando poi all'andamento doloroso di Light the Incense.
@Musica Agorà

iyezine.com/black-snake-moan-l…

Black Snake Moan - Lost In Time 

Black Snake Moan - Lost In Time  - Black Snake Moan - Lost In Time: - Black Snake Moan

^{Il Santo (In Your Eyes ezine)}

“The healer” su Thrill Jockey Records è il quinto disco sulla lunga distanza per i Sumac, gruppo di punta del rumorismo e della totale libertà musicale. Il gruppo formato da Nick Yacyshyn, Brian Cook e Aaron Turner torna a disegnare ardite parabole nei consumati cieli della musica moderna. @Musica Agorà

iyezine.com/sumac-the-healer

Sumac - The healer

Sumac - The healer - Sumac: una delle più particolari e meravigliose esperienze sonore che possiate compiere in questi tempi aridi. - Sumac

^{Massimo Argo (In Your Eyes ezine)}