Perma-Protoboard Setup

Perma-Protoboard Setup

For this process, first we will be soldering on the perma-protoboards. Once it is all set up, we will build our circuit in the housing.

Gather Supplies

There is a supply area at a table in the room. Please ask for help if you don't know where it is. Please gather the following supplies:

• a protoboard, 2 15-pin headers, 1 8-pin header, 1 2-pin screw terminal, 1 3-pin screw terminal
  
• a 2-wire piece of 4" ribbon cable and a 6-wire piece of 4" ribbon cable. The colors do not matter, just take the next pieces
  
• 5 loose pieces of 4" cable. You may take from the ribbon cable or the loose stock, but at least 1 piece must be from the ribbon cable. Assign each piece one of the roles below.
  

Soldering

If you haven't soldered before, start by watching a soldering demonstration. Then watch a classmate or TA for a few minutes, then give it a try! Please ask for help at any time.

Soldering irons may be moved between tables. Pick one that looks good to you and is not in use.

There is at least one soldering fan in each room. Help yourself to it, if desired.

There are also some helping hands and vices in each room, if desired.

Your room TA may give a soldering demonstration as well.

Soldering Female Headers

The 15-pin headers will be used to provide a place for putting the Arduino Nano on the protoboard. While you could solder directly to the protoboard, you run the risk of damagine the microcontroller. Removing something with a lot of pins is fairly difficult, so using headers provides a way to swap out such damaged components easily. In this situation, we are also using headers to provide a place for the 6-wire ribbon cable to connect to the Arduino. Since the header is an 8-pin header, two of the pins will not be used.

Place the two 15-pin headers on the permaprotoboard as shown below, with 1 row empty on both ends. There will be two columns on one side and three columns on the other side. Because the headers can wiggle from side-to-side, initially start by placing the Arduino partway in the headers.

Turn everything upside down and solder a pin or two on each side to set the angle. Then remove the Arduino before soldering the rest of the headers. Every pin on the header must be soldered.

Once you are done with both 15-pin headers, test that the Arduino fits in it and remove the Arduino after your test.

Then solder the 8-pin header. The diagram below shows the positions of the 3 headers on the board in yellow.

If you are new to soldering, this would be a good time to ask someone else to check your soldering to see if there are any issues. Look for bridges, which are where two rows may be connected. The best way to check for this is to use the continuity test on the multimeter and check adjacent rows for continuity.

Solder a loose wire to the protoboard

To solder the jumper cables onto the protoboard, we first need to cut off the male end. We want to keep the female end for the headers of the temperature sensor and display sensor to insert into. We don't have a lot of wire to work with, so use the wire cutter and cut off the male end right at the connector housing. Then strip about 1/4" of insulation.

Tin the end of the wire. This means to put solder on it. Twist the end of the wire. Support the wire with a helping hands device (something that will hold the stripped end in the air for you). Put a dab of solder on your soldering tip, put the soldering tip on the wire to heat it up. After a few seconds, put run the solder along the wire and the solder should coat the wire. Use your soldering tip to even out any solder. The coating should be very thin (you don't want a lot of solder). Please ask for a demonstration or watch a YouTube demonstration (first 3 min only).

Place the wire in the position indicated in the diagram below. Then solder it to the protoboard on the underside. When you are done, it should look like the picture on the right below.
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Solder a Screw Terminal Block

Find your 2-pin screw terminal block. Take a look at it. There is a front side and a back side. The front side has openings that you can stick wire in. You cannot do that on the back side, so the back side will be closest to the headers that you have just soldered.

Place the screw terminal in the position shown below. Be sure that the front side is facing out! The screw terminal will be pushed up against the wire you just soldered. if the wire is a bit crooked, you can loosen it and straighten it by melting the solder temporarily and repositioning it. The left opening of the screw terminal will be in the same row as the wire you just soldered.

Solder each lead of the screw terminal to the protoboard. The picture on the right shows what it should look like when you are done.

Now you are finished soldering the right side of the protoboard, you can move on and do the left side!

Solder the remaining wires and the 3-pin terminal block.

Please follow the diagram below for the position of the remaining wires. When you are done, it should look like the picture on the right.

Now that we've completed all the soldering, we can start building!