What color do you like your microcontroller boards? Blue? Red? Maybe white or black? Sadly, all of those are about to look old hat. Why? Well, as shared by [JLCPCB], this transparent Arduino looks amazing.

The board house produced this marvel using its transparent flexible printed circuit (FPC) material. Basically, the stuff they use for ribbon cables and flex PCBs, just made slightly differently to be see-through instead of vaguely brown.

The circuit in question is a Flexduino, an Arduino clone specifically designed to work on flexible substrates. It looks particularly good on this transparent material, with the LEDs glowing and the white silkscreen for contrast. If you like what you see, you can order your own circuits using this material directly from JLCPCB’s regular old order form.

Most of all, this project reminds us of the 1990s. Back then, you could get all kinds of games consoles and other electronics with transparent housings. There was the beloved PlayStation Crystal, while Nintendo did something similar with the N64 while adding a whole line of tinted color and charcoal versions too. Somehow seeing a bit of the inside of things is just cool. Even if, in some cases, it’s just to avoid smuggling in prisons.

It took decades before you could get custom PCBs quickly and easily. Now, board houses are competing for the enthusiast (consumer?) market, and competition is spurring development of crazy stuff like transparent and even glow in the dark PCBs. What next? We’re thinking edible, ROHS and WEEE be damned. Drop your thoughts in the comments.

Thanks to [George Graves] for the tip!