It's garden season ... slug tape is useful!

And to prove it - I managed to salvage some of C3P0's bits and make this bodge. It's a revised version of the USB microphone (well the head end anyway) and the slug tape is providing a small ground plane and some shielding around the JFET.

Two resistors and a 9V battery and we're in business with a mic-level input ready to go. Needs quite a bit more work to bring it to Matt's standards but I'll get there. 😉

I wonder if it would be possible to 'stamp' out a simple circuit. Imagine using one of the larger 50mm wide tape strips, sticking it onto a 3D printed template with some slight recessed groves for a knife to be run along to cut it out and peel away the unwanted copper. Ground plane use though is ideal!

For the mic build V2 I had planned on going with a 3D printed shell for some of the circuitry (depends how much can be put in the head), and designing it in such a way that it's a bit like a russian doll, with the gap between the inner and outer shells being used to clamp some mesh around it to provide the shield. Using copper tape instead is a nice alternative.

You can cut this stuff, cut grooves in in and make (simple) circuits that even wrap around stuff. It's great fun.

There isn't much to put in the head for V2 design. This is the (simulated) version and it does work in simulation but it has to be built to be 100% sure. Nothing is particularly weird except for the boostrapped diodes which reduce distortion.

I'll test this first before I hit you with a PCB! But I think we'll only need the diodes, J1, Q1, R2 and R4 at the head.

That said, the R3 and the LED could be moved up there (and you could make the LED a feature) and that would save a lead - this requires three wires from the buffer/amplifiers rather than just two. Two for power and ground and the other for the signal return. But it's coming back at nearly 1mA at 1mV so it's fairly noise free.  

I wonder if you can get some of that tape in wider sections and if so how wide? If you can get a roll like you would for Aluminum foil I would imagine you could make some fairly intricate circuitry using a crafting machine like a cricut. Then just glue down the copper foil to something sturdy like a sheet of aluminum, wood or fiberglass.

Slug tape is self-adhesive. You could use aluminium for screening but it's not great for conduction - and it doesn't take solder unless you get the specialist stuff.

But you're right, you can make some fairly decent circuits with it just by sticking a bunch to a solid board and carving out the bits you don't want with a craft knife. I'm doing one of my prototype mic heads like this in fact.