Quantcast
Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 44542

ratcrow on ProtoShield Assembly Guide

I just built one of these up yesterday, and this guide was helpful for getting started.

Two suggestions for anyone else who doesn’t do much of this:

First, it isn’t really necessary to measure the resistor values or read off the color codes — the two 330 Ohm resistors sit right next to each other, their values are marked on the silkscreen, and they’re the only two whose color codes match. The 10K will be the odd one out.

Second, for aligning the headers, I just plugged them into my Arduino Uno board and used it as an alignment fixture. I temporarily sandwiched a row of 0.1" headers sideways between the bottom of the ProtoShield PCB and the top of the headers on the Uno board to create a consistent gap of a few millimeters between them. This was enough space that I could put a dab of solder on both ends of each of the ProtoShield headers to tack them into place.

I use a soldering pencil with a fine point so it was not a problem to get it between the boards.

I then carefully separated the boards and soldered everything down properly. Since I had already aligned them, they fit perfectly when I was done.

If you try this, be careful to tack down the headers as quickly as possible — the heat from the iron could quickly cause damage to the Arduino board if you let it (melting the header or melting the solder joint under it). Rather than heating the pin and pad and then trying to get the solder to flow, it was easier to just pick up a bit of solder with the tip of the iron and dab it into the hole. That was enough to make it stick. After taking everything back apart, I resoldered these pins properly (and last, so the others would hold the alignment).

Having lots of flux helps the solder end up where it needs to be.

If you have another ProtoShield board, you could use it as a fixture just as well.


Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 44542

Trending Articles