openVolver Kit
The process of assembling your blinky kit consists mainly of three things that you will do over and over again. They are:
- Stuffing parts into holes in the circuit board
- Soldering those parts into the circuit board
- Clipping the leads that stick out
Place your part through the holes in the board. Make sure it is pressed flat against the circuit board. You may need to bend the leads out so it does not fall out when you turn the board over. You can also use a piece of cardboard or anything else flat and stiff to hold parts in place when you turn the board over.
An important note on assembling: The top side of the blinky has the artistic pattern with the dots and lines on it, and the bottom side has outlines of circuit parts as well as the imagenode and makerbot logos. All parts, except for the LEDs, should be stuffed through the bottom side of the board (seen below):
Assembly Steps:
Start by getting the 5 IC chips ready for soldering. The pins of the ICs are a little too wide to fit in the holes. To fix this, place the chip on its side on a flat hard surface. Place your thumbs over the pins on the other side. Squeeze evenly and gently until you feel the pins bend inward just a little. Do not squeeze too hard and over-bend the pins. If you do, you can carefully bend them back with a pair of pliers.
As you can see, the chip on the left has carefully bent leads to a 90° angle.
Stuffing: On top of each IC (integrated circuit) chip, there is a semi-circle notch at one end. Make sure this notch lines up with the corresponding notch on the circuit board. This is extremely important for the functionality of your kit. Stuff each chip in the corresponding spot from the following list:
- ATMEL ATMEGA328P - IC1
- MBI 5026GNS - IC2 & IC3
- MBI 5169GN - IC4
- OBCHDEK SN74L5245 -IC5
You have five .1uf capacitors, with '104' printed on them in tiny letters. These five smaller capacitors are not polarized, so they can be stuffed in either direction.
Put them in the following labelled positions:
C1, C2, C3, C4, C12
Put them in the following labelled positions:
C1, C2, C3, C4, C12
You have two 1uf capacitors, with '105' printed on them in tiny letters. Again, these two smaller capacitors are not polarized, so they can be stuffed in either direction.
Put them in the following labelled positions:
C10, C11
Put them in the following labelled positions:
C10, C11
You have two 22pf capacitors, with '22J' printed on them in tiny letters. These two smaller capacitors are not polarized, so they can be stuffed in either direction.
Put them in the following labelled positions:
C5, C6
Put them in the following labelled positions:
C5, C6
You have three 1.91K resistors, identified by their blue body color and brown, grey, red, and gold bands. Like the small capacitors these are not polarized, so they can be stuffed in either direction.
Put them in the following labelled positions:
R1, R2, R3
Put them in the following labelled positions:
R1, R2, R3
You have one 10K resistor, identified by a brown body, and brown, black, orange, and gold bands. Like the other resistors above, they are not polarized, so they can be stuffed in either direction.
Put it in the following labelled positions: R4
By now the front of your board is getting a bit crowded with the legs of all these components sticking out. You can bend them flush against the board to make things easier to manage and to stop them from sliding out the back when you flip the board.
Put it in the following labelled positions: R4
By now the front of your board is getting a bit crowded with the legs of all these components sticking out. You can bend them flush against the board to make things easier to manage and to stop them from sliding out the back when you flip the board.
While you're at it, put the crystal (metal and shiny) into Q1.
The button goes into the S2 position. It should snap into place easily. If it doesn't, rotate it 90° and try again.
This is a great time to do some soldering. If you have not bent the the legs flush against the board, cover the board with a piece of cardboard to keep the parts from falling out as you flip it.
Turn the board over, solder the parts in, and clip the leads that are sticking out. You do not have to clip the leads of the button.
Some points on clipping: Use your nippy cutter to clip the leads off the board after you've soldered them. Clip them just above the solder joint - do not force your cutter to be absolutely flush with the board and clip the entire solder joint off.
This is a great time to do some soldering. If you have not bent the the legs flush against the board, cover the board with a piece of cardboard to keep the parts from falling out as you flip it.
Turn the board over, solder the parts in, and clip the leads that are sticking out. You do not have to clip the leads of the button.
Some points on clipping: Use your nippy cutter to clip the leads off the board after you've soldered them. Clip them just above the solder joint - do not force your cutter to be absolutely flush with the board and clip the entire solder joint off.
The potentiometer goes in the corner, in position VR1. You may have to cram it in there a little -- the holes are a tight tolerance.
Next, stuff & solder the 3.3volt regulator, the semicircle component with three thin legs. The flat edge of the voltage regulator should be on the same side as the 2 1uf capacitors and the switch.
Stuff the switch in its spot in the upper right corner, so that the toggle you press with your finger extends from the board (take a look a the next step to see it placed). Go ahead and solder it in position. As you solder these connections, you will notice that some of the pads need more heat than others. These pads are part of the ground plane, which makes them take longer to solder. Be patient and apply heat until the solder melts into the joint.
Here is an image of what the bottom of your board should like by now. Take a moment to run through all your components and make sure they match up.
Next up, you will stuff the polarized capacitors. They go in positions C7 and C8. They are the same, so it doesn't matter which goes into which. However, these are polarized so it is important that you get their orientation correct! The long leg is closer to the outline for the battery holder. This puts the grey stripe facing out towards the edge of the board. There is a mark around one of the pads on the board -- the shorter of the two leads should be enclosed by that mark.
Stuff the voltage regulator at this time. It goes into U2, the only place it will fit. Align the silver backing of the part with the thick line on the circuit board, so that the silver backing is on the side of the battery holder.
At this point, check over your work to make sure you have no bridged connections or unsoldered parts. make sure you carefully check:
At this point, check over your work to make sure you have no bridged connections or unsoldered parts. make sure you carefully check:
- both switches
- both voltage regulators
- the crystal
- both 22 uF capacitors
If anything looks suspect, touch your soldering iron into the joing and reheat the connection until you see it melt. This is known as 'reflowing'. For now, you're done stuffing on the bottom of the board and can flip it over to the top.
The next thing to do is place the acrylic spacer on top of the circuit board, in such a manner that it sits flat on the board and the ovals match up with the LEDs pads. If you are looking at the circuit board with the switch at the bottom right, the two large holes on the spacer should be on the right side.
You're getting close!
You're getting close!
Now you'll start stuff the LEDs. each LED goes through a single oval of the acrylic spacer into the board, from the top side.
This is the important thing to remember: LEDs have two legs coming out of them. One is longer than the other. The long leg goes through the circular pad. Yes, one more time: THE LONG LEG GOES IN THE CIRCLE. Take your time doing this, it's important you get the orientation right otherwise you'll end up with dead pixels.
This is the important thing to remember: LEDs have two legs coming out of them. One is longer than the other. The long leg goes through the circular pad. Yes, one more time: THE LONG LEG GOES IN THE CIRCLE. Take your time doing this, it's important you get the orientation right otherwise you'll end up with dead pixels.
After your done stuffing the 36 LEDs, you're going to flip the board and solder. Be careful when flipping the board that the LEDs don't slide out - if you'd prefer you can use some masking tape to hold down the LEDs in place before you flip them.
Try to keep them from getting soldered in at an angle. The way to fix a crooked LED is to reheat both the pads at once while pushing the LED in with your other hand from the other side of the board. You will need to hold the board up to attempt this.
You can clip the LEDs when they are all soldered in, or you can clip them as you go along to open up room to solder more easily. There are a couple of LEDs that are a bit hard to get to:
Try to keep them from getting soldered in at an angle. The way to fix a crooked LED is to reheat both the pads at once while pushing the LED in with your other hand from the other side of the board. You will need to hold the board up to attempt this.
You can clip the LEDs when they are all soldered in, or you can clip them as you go along to open up room to solder more easily. There are a couple of LEDs that are a bit hard to get to:
- The LED that is in between the voltage regulator and the polarized capacitors. Rotate your soldering iron around to get a good angle on it.
- The LED that is very close to the microSD card slot -- watch out to not bridge that connection.
Last part to stuff and solder is the battery holder. It goes in through the back, in the large rectangular outline in the middle of the board. Make sure to get a good solder joint on it. After you solder it, You should stabilize it in place with either a hot glue gun or some double sided foam tape.