Let’s Weld!

Now, I’m more or less ready with the plans. Let’s have some fun and do some soldering. As I planned earlier I will use a stripboard for this project. I will make a shield for the Seeeduino so I can easily remove it later if I want. Since the original connectors on the Arduino design are at non standard place first I have to solder an extra connector onto the Seeeduino. Fortunately Seeeduino provides place for extra sockets, which are at standard place so I do not need to make a custom PCB. I will use this kinds of connectors:

connectors

My local shop did not have connectors with 8 legs, so I used two 4 legs.

Here is the Seeeduino with its extra connector:

Seeeduino with extra connector

As you can see now I have duplicate connector for the upper digital I/O pins (lower right in the picture). The upper connector is the new one and it is at standard place. After soldering I inserted pins to the connectors in order to find the right place on the stripboard where I soldered them. I tried to place it where the USB and power connectors of the Seeeduino are at the border of the stripboard. So when I will build the thing to a box I can access them directly from outside.

soldered pins

Now I can simply plug my Seeeduino to the board:

Seeeduino plugged to the shield

Finally I marked the places on the stripboard where I have to make cuts. I used a permanent marker:

Cuts noted

After posting this I just found there is a little mistake. I marked a line for cut which is not necessary. It is your homework to find it

Next I will go on with the LCD circuit. I will use  10 and 2 pin sockets and ribbon cable to connect the LCD.