I use a pair of curved tweezers to hold the part in place while soldering, the same tweezers I use to position the part. With the curve, I can rest the back end on the work surface and the pointy end on the part and gently press with one hand. A very little bit of solder on one pad, place the component, melt the solder to hold the component in place, solder the other pad, then finally touch up the first pad if needed. I never thought to try Jimās trick with the Xacto blade, but might give it a try on the next board I build.
If your spool of solder says 63/37 or 60/40 then it is leaded. That is best. I have never used lead-free as I have a large spool of leaded that should last me a long time.
For temperature I leave my iron set to 700F and it seems to work well. Heat the pad and component, then let them melt the solder.
When soldering headers I always try to use something to align them, usually the mating connector. For Arduino shields I would plug them into an arduino board to solder at least the first couple of pins. If it is not possible to plug them into a mating connector, then just solder one pin at first. Then you can melt the solder and move the header into correct alignment. If you solder multiple pins you will have a really hard time moving it.
Iād say overall the board looks good. Touch up any joints that look cold, check continuity as needed, and fire it up! Good luck!
I need to get some new tweezers. I got some cheap plastic set several years ago, which is not the bestā¦ Will set to 700, I had the new at about 650 and the old for about 725ā¦
Yep will try to do the tack the component on the next board. It appears to be 63/37. When I was doing each set of 4 3 pin connectors, I did plug a couple of servo extenders in to keep the spacing correct, I then did solder one pin in on both connectors, then did the solder and push to make sure the pins seated and then soldered the rest. Likewise the 3 pin power connectors are .2 away from signal pin so used the servo extender to help hold it in place. The challenge is with the Arduino Headers as there are 10 8 pin connectors, plus 2 6 pin connectors, plus a 4 pin I2C plus 6 pin ISP.
So I decided to go brave and plug the board into one of my Seeeduino mega boards. Again pain in put to align 100+ pins. Found first goof, the ISP plug appears to be off by about .1 inch. Aargh (I double checked that earlier.) After some contemplating my navel I ended up cutting off the 6 pin ISP header in the extender. So Currently can not program Arduino through it. Does not hurt my testing as the only thing connected to it from the shield is +5v and GND, and I get them elsewhere as well. After considerable wiggling and the like I think I have all the pins in now Now to start testing.
So far the power LED comes on when I connect USB and have VS/VL jumper connected. Now to write a simple program that toggles IO pins and see if I can program it and if the IO pins are working. One of the other LEDS is slightly on, so need to investigate that as well.
Kurt
Update: So far I have a simple test program that sends text to the USB port, plays three notes on the speaker, blinks each of the 3 leds three times. It then inits the 3 buttons to input with pull-up enabled. The Loop right now simply walks through all of the digital IOs and turns off and then onā¦ Also it checks the state of the 3 buttons and sets an LED to the same valueā¦ (Actually ! value as Button pressed goes lowā¦). So far I am getting the text, LEDS are blinking (The reds are a lot brighter than green or yellow, not sure if wrong choice for those or need different resistors. The buttons appear to work, so things appear to be working reasonably well .
Just tested the Analog 14 and 15 pins connected to VServo and VIn and is voltage/4 for battery levels
Next to actually check the IO pins to see if data, check Ground and power pins, ā¦
I am not sure if we should build all 5 of this pass or only a few to find out issues. Also not sure who else Jim would like to test one or more of these out. I can see myself building 3 of them for testing, one to run DIY Remote, 2nd one for a Brat with PS2 and Servos, so we verify that is working and 3rd one for phoenix code base with SSC-32. Probably would use my CHR-3 for it. At some point I will try to merge in our new Alpha code base into the Arduino Phoenix code base and slightly off topic, the Propeller code base.
I guess the question will be when should we leak out more info on this? My guess is that assuming no major problem, I could have either the brat or chr-3 up and running pretty quickly.
Testing update:
Had program loop through and raise and lower each IO pin from 2-45 (46 is sound, 48-50 is LEDS and 51-53 are buttons so know they are connected). The program also checks if the pin number is a multiple of 5 and then does quicker raise and lower the pin number/5, used logic analyzer to verify those workedā¦ Now off to Analog
Have also started testing Analog pins. The test program now asks for input from Serial, so I know that some is working. The test is currently only testing the Analog pins for Digital use, Appears to work for A0-A4, A7-A13. Did not test 14 and 15. But nothing happened on A5 and A6, need to investigate, it may simply be these pins are used for something else like I2C and I need to do something. Will test on native board. Tested again, did not have the connector seated enough, works now.
I have now verified that the Serial pins are setup properly, to make easy connection to SSC-32. That is I can take a servo wire plug it into Serial1 or 2 or 3 and then plug it in to SSC-32 comm connection. Verified all three work at 38400 by issuing āVerā command and verified that I got proper response back.
Next test will probably be PS2, but may take a bit of time as we have contractor coming this morning and we purchased 16 15 gallon trees yesterday that we need to plant.
Wow great work! The question is, because the board needs to be redone, does it warrant making any more changes.
Iām curious to see how this all looks with the two boards sandwiched together. Can you post images of it? I will need to start working on the best way to integrate the board into the products.
Hey this really is pretty cool! Itās compact and very powerful. I assume a shield can be attached on top even with servos connected? I hopeā¦ lol I donāt really see any problems mounting this to any of our existing bots.
As far as other changes, I have none in mind. I meant if during testing you find something that needs changing.
As for connecting other sheilds, it may depend on the shield, that is we have connectors on every which side so getting the wires out would be fun!. But if there were some minimal sheilds, that left room on one side, it probably can be done!.
Donāt have many to test with. I have XBEE shield, but it uses the ISP connectorā¦ I have a servo shield, but no need for that.
Kurt
I am starting to hook up PS2 to test. So far I get the correct blinking lights, now to import the PS2 library. Another possible layout change I am thinking about is where the PS2 power connection is. I am using the two servo extension wire method to hook up the PS2. If I change the layout, where the PS2 power is just below the CLK line (IO Pin 33), I could simply plug in the 2nd extension wire without having to remove the signal wire. Also gives the benefit that you could easily use this connection for another standard 3 wire sensor, with the understanding it will always be +5v and there is a PU on the IO pin.
But now that I have done that, it makes me wonder if I should simply add a 4x2 connector instead of a 1x2 and have power available for all 4 pins. Would need to again move the PU resistors, but that is no big deal.
I think I like the PS2 connector as is. It would allow normal servo cables to be used to connect the PS2 receiver. The PS2 cables have been a pain and every time the colors change. So I think itās time to let it go and just use servo connectors.
However an option would be to make it using a 2 x 3 header. Would simplify the assembly slightly. Iām good either way.
I think this should be the priority board for arduino as it immediately enables any arduino user to attach it to our bots and make them work.
I have not had as much time to play here as I would like. Been busy with other stuff, like trees)
Yesterday I went through the layout again and I believe I have all of the connectors laid out exactly like the Seeeduino Mega.
But have now played with I2C. Not sure If I like the ribbon cable connectors. They appear to be a little more temperamental to use than normal servo type connections. I broke the cover off of one trying to get the connections to seat properly. Second one the top part kept wanting to pop off as you try to plug it into the connector on the board, probably need more space there. Wonder if it would be easier to go back to .1" male pin connectorsā¦ Or should maybe go to side entry version of this one (7-215460-4) as this would give more room for the ribbon cable. Regardless I do have the .1" female connector near it.
Thoughts?
So for most of my test I simply used jumper wires from there to an SRF08. I used the standard wire library (I2C), and downloaded someone Elseās SRF08 library. When I entered the I2C test, I had it loop reading distances and printing them out, until the user presses a button (read pin 51). Appears to be working fine.
Next off is to either assemble a second board or use the current one and try it out on a bot!
Now to start testing.
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