Chris Gunning, cgunning@ieee.org
IEEE-Boise Section

If you’d like to order some blank coaster boards or get the BOM or circuit diagram for assembling a fully-functioning board, please drop me a note at cgunning@ieee.org. The cost for a set of four blank coasters is $12 (US orders, includes shipping) and a single coaster is $5, payable to the IEEE-Boise section.

History of the coaster

Jan. 17, 2021

A friend of mine decided to create some geeky drink coasters for his friends and himself. He designed a PCB board that would normally be no-loaded for the drink coaster, but if loaded with the right components is wifi- or BLE-capable, has some LEDs that could be remotely controllable, plus other features.

Our IEEE-Boise section has leveraged his design for an IEEE promotional item. We will give them out or sell them at cost at some of our future events once we can have in-person events again. The pictures below are a work in progress of the boards. The outer circle diameter is 100mm.

  • Upper side, with tagline. Original design by Kyle Hounsell.
  • Upper side, without tagline. Original design by Kyle Hounsell.
  • Lower side with QR code linking to info page. Original design by Kyle Hounsell.

Although the board is just supposed to be a coaster, Kyle writes: “if you want to build this, into a functional arduino-esque monstrosity, it will add another 7 bucks, about, to the total cost of each coaster…Adding the wifi or BLE module would be another 4-10 bucks. Assembly requires decent skills with a soldering iron. the microprocessor is a QFP32 atmega, and the parts are all 0402 size. You will be able to identify these when you receive a coaster, at least. it can be soldered…with a pair of tweezers, a roll of snpb solder, a sewing needle, and a regular radioshack chisel tip soldering iron. You do not strictly need a hot air gun or an oven.

“If you only plan to use this as a coaster, you need to use clear nail polish on the back of the board to seal the vias and gauge holes.

“The boards are configured with 12 leds…so these can be used as digital dice for d6 d8 d10 d12 and d2^12.”

If we produce these boards, we will update this page with a bill of materials, assembly instructions, and a picture of a completed board.

Jan. 27, 2021

I received some samples of each board today. They look good. I sent a couple boards to Kyle that he’ll build up.

Jan. 28, 2021

Good news — the IEEE branding team has approved the design.

Feb. 19, 2021

Here are some pictures and a video of one of the boards Kyle built up.

April 24, 2021

I received the first batch of production boards a few weeks ago but I didn’t get a chance to do anything with them until last week. Kyle has sent me a BOM and circuit diagram. Contact me if you’d like a copy. I’ll post it here when I get a chance.