The Queen is Dead

[pickdropper]

This is actually the second one of these that I've built.  Somebody asked me to build a CE-2 with a boost (EP Booster in this case).  They also happened to be a huge Smiths fan and wanted the cover of "The Queen is Dead" on the pedal.  This was a fun learning experiment for me as I haven't done a lot of photo etching (I usually do vector graphics).  It was interesting to find that higher resolution looked worse, and the importance of proper dithering of the image.  As you can see, there is some speckled noise to the image, which is part of that dithering process.  Too smooth and the detail disappears, which is somewhat counter-intuitive.

[Martan]

Looks beautiful!

But where are the rest of the wires?

[pickdropper]

Looks beautiful!

But where are the rest of the wires?

They are there if you look closely.  ;-)

[jimilee]

That's my favorite Smiths album. The watch is highly impressive. Looks like the mic has been dropped!


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[culturejam]

Damn, son.

Photo etching is kinda hard.

[BrianS]

You just continue to crank some awesome and amazing projects. This one just falls in line with the rest. 

[jubal81]

Looks great! That gold enclosure is perfect, too.

I see a missing IC. Designed for charge pump but running on 9V?

[pickdropper]

Looks great! That gold enclosure is perfect, too.

I see a missing IC. Designed for charge pump but running on 9V?

Yeah, the EP booster board layout I did has provisions for 18V operation, but I left it off this build. 

[stringsthings]

Super build!  The Smiths are awesome.  Marr's playing was so melodic and unique. 
And he wasn't even 20 when the band was formed.  Incredible.

[reddesert]

Awesome, and very appropriate match of effect to theme.

Is the dithering that you're referring to like the half-tone spots that newspapers used to print photos, BITD? I imagine that changed around the time newspapers started to appear in color?  I'm now remembering cutting out press-on dot patterns to do shading in illustrations for my high school newspaper.

[Micpoc]

Nice! Looks like you even got the font correct (Bodoni??)

[pickdropper]

Nice! Looks like you even got the font correct (Bodoni??)

Good catch.  It was important to the person that originally commissioned it that I use the correct fonts.  I believe Bodoni was the font, but I'd have to check.

[brejna]

Love it! Perfect as always.

[pickdropper]

Awesome, and very appropriate match of effect to theme.

Is the dithering that you're referring to like the half-tone spots that newspapers used to print photos, BITD? I imagine that changed around the time newspapers started to appear in color?  I'm now remembering cutting out press-on dot patterns to do shading in illustrations for my high school newspaper.

I'm not an expert on newspapers, but I think that process is *slightly* different (halftoning). 

This is a fairly decent explanation of dithering for laser engraving:

http://support.epiloglaser.com/article/8205/42809/using-the-dithering-option-in-the-epilog-laser-dashboard

Interestingly, sometimes lowering the resolution results in a much better image.  In the example below, there are a couple of different dithering settings, but the highest resolution is the one on top an the lowest resolution is the one on the bottom.  As you can see, the contrast is much better.

[Clark GriswoId]

Its soooo clean on the inside, soooo clean on the outside.

Great work. I need to learn this type of etching.