Hacking Printed Circuit Board to Create Casing and Instrument Panels
Over on Hackaday.io our hackers [Angelo] and [Oscarv] are making a replica of the PDP-1. That is interesting in and of itself but the particularly remarkable feature of this project is its novel use of printed circuit boards for casing and instrument panels.
What does that mean in practice? It means creating a KiCad file with a PCB for each side of the case/panel. These pieces can then be ordered from a board house and assembled. In the video below the break you will see an example of putting such a case together. They use sticky tape for scaffolding and then finish things off by soldering the solder joints on each edge together.
We cover so many PCB hacks over here at Hackaday that we have an entire category dedicated to them: PCB Hacks. If you’re interested in PCBs you might like to read about their history, as before they were everywhere they were nowhere.
Thanks to [Oscarv] for writing in to let us know about this one.
youtube.com/embed/B4p0aQRA0CI?…
hackaday.com/2025/08/09/hackin…
