Sunday, July 27, 2014

Finished the Copy of the Sparkfun LCD Backpack Kit

Hand drilling the through holes was not too big of a problem. I did break my last bit and had to bicycle across Penang to the electronics store for more .8mm bits. It is Tonsin Components on Agile street just up from the end of Chulia. Only a couple miles.
My good pliers as a spacer to give clearance not to drill the desktop.

The screws sticking out the sides of the chuck should have been set screws, but this was less than $10 for motor, chuck and a few bits.
Looks pretty god at this stage.

I forgot to take any photos as I was soldering in the components. It was quite a challenge. I had not noticed that so many of the holes are used as vias! Most of the chip,and two of the headers have more than half their holes that way. Then I still had several shorts and non-connections to sort out. About 2 hours to solder it up and get the lights to work.
Not as pretty. It is "no clean" flux. Power, GND and Rx on the left. PGM header on right.

The top side

This is my previous incarnation of almost the same circuit. It is done up on a Radio Shack proto board. Just a little bigger and a little messyer.