Building the Super Pixel Bros PCB Kit from Itead Studio

[bitfogav]

Hi people, I brought one of Brads great Super Pixel Bros PCB kits from itead studio and would just like to share how I put mine together.

The kit came with almost everything you need to build the Super Pixel Bros Kit, but I would recommend you buy a 8pin Dil socket for the MonoFonic Audio Chip and some normal header pins for the LCD display, examples below.

8pin Dill socket:

8-pin.png (11.54 KiB) Viewed 22295 times

Pin Headers:

pins.jpg (4.48 KiB) Viewed 22295 times

[bitfogav]

Can I just say that you need to be pretty good with a soldering iron to solder the surface mount chips on the board, So I started off with soldering just the surface mount resistors first, its a good idea to use a good soldering iron tip and flux.

first1.jpg (37.84 KiB) Viewed 22294 times

Next I solder on the main chips (74373 and 18f4550) and the on and off switch, note this can also be pretty tricky, I recommend a small soldering iron tip with very little solder on the tip of the soldering iron.

second2.jpg (37.69 KiB) Viewed 22294 times

Then next I solder on the pin headers for the LED matrix, 8pin dil, power led, transitor and our 5volt regulator.

third3.jpg (36.09 KiB) Viewed 22294 times

Thats taken care of most of the tricky parts, next we solder on the buttons, 9volt battery lead and the buzzer.

four4.jpg (36.91 KiB) Viewed 22294 times

And to finish it off we then need to solder the LCD display to the board with the header pins and then fix the LED matrix.

five55.jpg (31.71 KiB) Viewed 22294 times

[bitfogav]

Heres a small video of the Super Pixel Bros, sorry for the poor quality of the video.



If you need more information about any of the steps above then just ask

[brad]

Excellent write up bitfogav!

Did you find it quite straight forward to build? (apart from the components being small SMD parts)

[bitfogav]

Excellent write up bitfogav!

Did you find it quite straight forward to build? (apart from the components being small SMD parts)

Hey Brad,

Yes it was pretty much straight forward, I could see that you put alot of thought into this project so the user could build it with ease. but you still need to be handy with a soldering iron though!

Could we add a volume control to the buzzer on version 2? (maybe thats something Stacy could add to his MonoFonic chip)

[bitfogav]

Hi everyone, Heres a few more things that I wanted to share.

There didnt seem to be a Buzzer orientation mark on the PCB so here is a picture of the correct position for the Buzzer with the + symbol marked on the Buzzer:

6-2.jpg (28.62 KiB) Viewed 22280 times

For the novice building this kit the position of the Microcontroller: Has you can see on the PCB there is a small white dot, which indicates Pin One of the microcontroller, this picture shows you the Orientation of the microcontroller, note that there is a small "dimple" on the microcontroller itself which should line up with the white dot on the PCB (the "dimple" on the microchip is abit hard to see in this picture):

7-2.jpg (38.36 KiB) Viewed 22280 times

I wanted to also point out where the resistors go on the board: The kit comes with 3 different resistor values (150ohms, 1k, 10k) Brad has clearly shown on the PCB where the resistors go:

11-2.jpg (55.26 KiB) Viewed 22280 times

And for those who want to reprogramme the microcontroller in circuit, Brad has added some handy ICSP pads on the back of the board, I have added some Pin headers to mine like this:

10-2.jpg (30.97 KiB) Viewed 22280 times

[brad]

Excellent write up bitfogav!

Did you find it quite straight forward to build? (apart from the components being small SMD parts)

Hey Brad,

Yes it was pretty much straight forward, I could see that you put alot of thought into this project so the user could build it with ease. but you still need to be handy with a soldering iron though!

Could we add a volume control to the buzzer on version 2? (maybe thats something Stacy could add to his MonoFonic chip)

You can control the volume by putting your finger over the buzzer

[bitfogav]

You can control the volume by putting your finger over the buzzer

I think you been hanging around with Stacy too long Brad!!

[brad]

You can control the volume by putting your finger over the buzzer

I think you been hanging around with Stacy too long Brad!!

I know, I'm trying to cut down though!