Arduinome Build Log

Deviating from the flip-mu guide, I decided to re-wire my sparkfun boards using molex connectors and headers.  Since the outer headers need to accommodate two wires per pin, I had to rig up a special header using two 1×4 right-angle pins.  You can see in the image below that I placed the full strips in side-by-side and then soldered along the edge to join them into a 2×4 configuration, but with only a 1×4 pin-out to connect to the sparkfun board.  I received the pins in 40ct breakaway strips and used my snips to cut them down to size.

zoom in to see an illustration of where I soldered these together ^^^

Here you can see the headers after being soldered to the board.

All of the desoldering/resoldering caused a few of the solder pads on the boards to come off.  This resulted in some creative repair work.  Here you can see a single strand of solid-core cat5 cable that I soldered from the pin header to a test point on the board.  Keep an eye on your iron temperatures, folks.

And here we have the results.  I feel that it looks much cleaner, but I am unsure about the connectors holding up since they aren’t actually “latched” onto the headers.  Maybe once everything is tested and working I’ll go through and just superglue them in place

I was short on the black shrouds, so I wasn’t yet able to connect up all of the yellow wiring to the unsped breakaway.  That’ll be my next step most likely.

Stay tuned!

PS:  I received my enclosure last week. Can’t wait to post pictures, but I want do keep this all in order so you’ll have to wait.

I had a short amount of time this evening to work, so I decided to get the chips, capacitors, and the resistors soldered to the arduino shield.  One thing to note here is that the resistor net for the shield has 10 pins, where the shield only has 9 through-holes.  You need to snip off pin 10 (opposite of pin 1 which has a small circle next to it) or bend it out of place like I did (for insurance in case I picked the wrong one).

The wires and plugs for my re-envisioning of the way the sparkfun boards are usually wired should be here any day. I’m curious to find out if this makes things cleaner, or more cluttered.  Hopefully, if anything, it will make any troubleshooting once the build is completed much easier, as the wires will be easily detachable.

It’ll take me some time to remove my old wiring, and I’ll probably skip that step as far as this build log is concerned.

Since it appears that I am going to have to re-do my previous wiring on the button pad PCB in order to accomodate the connections to the shield, I decided to solder up the IC sockets and header pins on the shield itself to give myself a break from dealing with wires.

I finally finished soldering all of the diodes onto the main PCB last week.  Once that was done, I superglued the 4 pieces together.  You can see in the pictures that I wasn’t very tidy with the glue, but oh well.

With that completed, I was able to get the surface-wiring on the main PCB completed as well.  Unfortunately, I didn’t plan far enough ahead, and I am going to have to come up with a way to get the wiring from the unsped shield connected to the same through-holes as some of my PCB wires.  This may be as simple as globbing more solder onto these points and sticking the wires in that way.  If the joints hold, that will likely be my inelegant solution to this particular problem.  I didn’t have enough header-pins to rig it up that way, and honestly I don’t think that would be any cleaner a solution in the long run; and it certainly wouldn’t have been any easier on the eyes.

Next up:  Attaching the unsped shield ….

I received my unsped shield/PCB yesterday.  Much to my surprise, I was shipped an extra one as well.  This is shaping up more-and-more to either be a 128 build, or perhaps I’ll just build a 2nd one with the knowledge I’ve gained.

If you zoom into the full size version of this picture, you’ll see where one of the boards has a slight defect.  I’ve tested the traces, and there doesn’t seem to be any functional effect, so we’re golden.

Just received word that my unsped shield has shipped!  Looks like I may have to re-source the MAX7219CNG+ chip, but that’s a.o.k with me.

UPDATE:  I just ordered two free samples from Maxim direct, so I won’t even need to buy one for my next Arduinome should I decide to build another!

Tonight I completed the rest of my LED soldering.  I then started attaching the diodes for the button pads and was able to complete 2 of the 4 PCBs there as well.

Best of all, I figured out the macro setting on Connie’s camera, so I’ll have some slightly clearer pics from here on out

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Today I started soldering the LEDs to their PCBs.  Two down, two to go.

I’m beginning this build by roughly following the guide at flip-mu.  If I miss anything here, hopefully you can fill in the blanks by referencing his guide.  Also, I’m open to any and all questions.

So far, here’s what I have in-hand:

Sparkfun:

• Button Pad 4×4 – Breakout PCB x4
• Diode Small Signal – 1N4148 x70 (bought a few extras)
• Button Pad 4×4 – LED Compatible x4
• Arduino Duemilanove USB Board x1

Digi-Key:

• LED 5MM AMBER DIFFUSED x70 (again, I picked up a few extras.  You can never have enough LEDs)
• RESISTOR 30K OHM 1/2W 5% CARBON FILM x5 (Only need 1, but minimum order was 5 and they were only a nickel each)
• MM74HC164N IC REGISTER PAR-OUT 8BIT 14-DIP x1
• MM74HC165N IC REGIST PAR-IN/SER-OUT 16-DIP
• ED90053-ND IC SOCKET 24PIN MS TIN/TIN .300 x1
• ED90049-ND IC SOCKET 14PIN MS TIN/TIN .300 x1
• ED90050-ND IC SOCKET 16PIN MS TIN/TIN .300 x1
• CAPACITOR CER .10UF 100V 10% RADIAL x3
• RESISTOR NET 9RES 100K OHM 10PIN x1
• CONN HEADER .100 SINGL STR 36POS x2
• CAPACITOR 10UF 50V MINI ALUM ELECT (KA) x1

All-Electronics:

• RCSC-16 (RBBN CBL CONN 16 PIN FEMALE) x4
• 20 CONDUCTOR RIBBON CABLE 10ft

I anticipate this project lasting me a few months, so I’m not too put-off by the backorder dates on the shield and LED driver chip.  If worse comes to worse, I’ll cancel and re-source them.  I think I have plenty to do in the meantime.

I’m also throwing around enclosure ideas.  Currently I’m shooting for a walnut faceplate with an aluminum enclosure.  I think this could be a pretty classy look with the amber LEDs.  Sourcing short-run CNC projects can be difficult and expensive, so this will be under a lot of consideration until we need to cross that bridge.