April 26, 2026
Rock, paper, circuit boards
Clay PCB Tutorial
Clay PCBs: Stonepunk vibes spark a fight over smoke, stamps, and “just wire it”
TLDR: A Vienna group shows how to craft circuit boards from wild clay and recycled Arduino chips, fired in a backyard pit. Commenters split between loving the stonepunk art, noting ceramics aren’t new, questioning open-fire emissions, and arguing to either 3D-print instead—or skip boards and just wire it.
A Vienna art-hacker collective just dropped a tutorial on making circuit boards—the green plates that hold your gadget’s guts—out of local clay, reusing old Arduino chips to push “ethical hardware.” They 3D-printed a stamp, accounted for clay shrinkage, and even fired boards in an open wood pit after deciding electric kilns weren’t eco enough. It’s artsy, punk, and a little wild, and the comments section promptly caught fire.
One camp gushes over the aesthetic and the ethics, dubbing it “truly stonepunk.” Another crowd slams the novelty angle, reminding everyone that ceramics already show up in electronics, even full-on ceramic PCBs. The hottest debate? Emissions: a skeptic wonders if a desktop 3D printer might be cleaner than open-fire pottery, linking to a quick-turn idea for simple circuits on Bluesky. Meanwhile, hardcore pragmatists crash the party with a mic drop: skip boards entirely and just wire it free-air.
Between feminist hacklab vibes, backyard bonfires, and gold-plated reality checks, the community mood swings from eco-hopeful to eye-roll practical. The result: a spicy, creative clash over what “sustainable hardware” really looks like—and whether the future is clay, plastic, or no boards at all.
Key Points
- •The project explores clay-based PCBs as “ethical hardware” using locally sourced, low-impact materials.
- •ATmega328P chips from faulty Arduino Uno boards are reused, targeting circuits that handle varied inputs and outputs.
- •A 3D-printed stamp (recycled polypropylene) imprints circuit tracks; optimal imprint depth found is ~1.2 mm.
- •Clay shrinkage during drying/firing is estimated around 5%, affecting design tolerances.
- •Porcelain’s high-temperature kiln firing raised energy concerns, leading to trials of open-wood fire techniques learned from Austrian potter Heinz Lackinger.