Flexible Electronics Workshop

This is work-in-progress documentation on workshops I am running on flexible electronics, starting at Fab25 Czechia in July 2025. Above you can see some example circuits, and the design files to cut these using a vinyl cutter will be uploaded soon! The basic idea is that we can make flexible circuits out of copper tape, a flexible base material (polyimide, aka Kapton, is the standard material for flexible electronics, but you can also use paper).

The process works like this:

1. Cut a piece of copper tape that’s slightly (1-2 cm on all sides) bigger than the circuit design you want to make

2. If using Kapton as the base material, cut a similar sized piece of Kapton and stick your copper tape to it. Copper tape crinkles and wrinkles easily, so take your time and go slowly. It’s best to peel back a little bit of the carrier (the paper backing that is on the tape) and stick that down first, then gently peel off the rest of the carrier, pressing the tape onto the Kapton as you go. A squeegee, or even a ruler, can help smooth out any creases.

3. If using paper as the base material, we’ll need to cut the circuit design first and then transfer it

4. Next we load the material into the vinyl cutter and use it to cut out the circuit design. For designs on Kapton, we’ll first cut the tape, with a low cutting force, and then increase the force to cut out the outline of the flexible circuit.

5. For paper-based circuits, we will cut the copper tape and the paper separately. Then use transfer tape or masking tape to carefully lift the copper tape design and transfer it onto the paper.

6. For circuits with components, the next step is to solder the components. The examples above include an LED circuit, which can have multiple LEDs. The exact value of the resistor you use will depend on how many LEDs you put on your circuit, and this is covered in more detail in the workshop

7. We can then add some clear nail polish on top of the LEDs to make them a bit more secure on the circuit. This is called ‘encapsulation’. In a proper flexible circuit we would also cut a layer of insulation film and apply it to the top of the circuit, but that’s not included in the workshops at the moment.

These instructions are a first draft, and need more detail to be added. I would like to add a ‘troubleshooting’ section on what do do if things go wrong, so if you are a participant in one of the workshops, do let me know what worked well and what didn’t, to help improve the instructions for future participants. There is a Google Drive folder with a document for you to add feedback here. You can also add pictures from the workshop in the folder, and I’d especially like to see photos of things that went wrong!