Comments on: Project Ladybird is go!

By: chris woebken

chris woebken — Thu, 08 May 2008 14:05:02 +0000

Please let me know how far you can push the limits, it would be great so see something like a Oystercard Jacket with a huge aerial or a jojo? I am curious what kind of magic you guys come up with.

By: Lave

Lave — Thu, 08 May 2008 13:57:26 +0000

I’m still struggling to get a camera that can do proper macro, but if you look on the back of the chip (the black square side) mine just seems to be linked to either side of that (without touching it). I think the wires are the other side of the chip are just ‘run off’ and not meant to be touching anything, but I’m not sure…

I’ll let you know when I find a decent camera! Good luck!

By: Lave

Lave — Thu, 08 May 2008 09:15:33 +0000

Excellent work Frank! I too attempted this after see Chris’ work on boingboing, ( (here’s the link) .

I used Nail Varnish Remover, and it seems to work better than the undiluted acetone you used. Rather than fully dissolve the card it just made it flexible enough for the layers to be peeled off and the intact circuit and aerial removed.

I think I’m hacking mine into a magic wand.

By: Ian

Ian — Wed, 07 May 2008 11:50:12 +0000

Also, be careful of toasting the chip when you solder it. You could attach a crocodile clip (I hear you can buy them for about £1000 somewhere…) as a makeshift heatsink.

By: Frank the SciencePunk

Frank the SciencePunk — Tue, 06 May 2008 22:13:45 +0000

Any chance of a close-up image of your handicraft? I have a feeling I’ll solder the wire to the wrong place…

Kudos too - that is a damn small chip to be soldering.

By: chris woebken

chris woebken — Tue, 06 May 2008 22:07:17 +0000

thanks for the feature. i tried different aerials and soldering the chip to new aerials still worked - some did not. important it needs to be coil.