FYI, some boarduino assembly, bringup notes (longish, links)

[Larry]

Greetings all,

I put together and brought up my first boarduino last night.

Here are some notes on assembling, bringing up a boarduino that may be of use to others:

I found some online build instructions w/photos, elsewhere than adafruit:
http://principialabs.com/building-boarduino/

http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2008/06/build_make_a_boarduino.html

Note that to get the green LED to come on, the power-select header must be installed AND the jumper must be installed onto it, on the side per the applied power.

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Orientation/Polarity of some parts, esp for newbies:

Resistors and ceramic caps are unpolarized (go in either way)

Resonators seem to be unpolarized; check this.
I assembled w/text facing away from CPU, per sideview photo in:
http://ladyada.net/make/boarduino/index.html
That orientation works.

Diodes are polarized. On axial diodes (cyl with leads on axis) the band marks the cathode (neg end when conducting.)

LEDs are diodes, LED polarization is typically marked in a couple ways:
if there's a flat side (near the base), that's the cathode (-);
if one lead is longer than the other, that's the anode (+); check *before* snipping.

The 7805 regulator should have the heatsink tab (metal bit on top), toward the outside edge of the board. A heatsink is a good idea, esp. if powering with above 9 V, or drawing much current.

The electrolytic caps (cylinders) are polarized -- usually marked either + or - (in a stripe) along one side.

Switch S1 needs to go in either with the 2 or the 8 (stamped faintly into the metal on the top) toward the S1 label. (Don't turn it 90 degrees from this.)

The CPU is polarized. The notch on the end goes toward the power select jumper.
This orientation also puts the dot near C6. See photos.

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When soldering in parts with lots of leads, a piece of tape (to hold it nice and flush to the board) is handy.

Practice good board hygene; clean the flux off, before you forget. Isopropyl aclohol works well, I used an old toothbrush to scrub away the stubborn spots. Dry the board before powering it up.

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USB/serial port speed:
After the driver install, my port defaulted to 9600 8N1, that works OK, but is slow.

You can change this:
On windows:
control panel -> system -> hardware -> device manager -> (your USB2serial port) -> port settings

I've increased that to 57Kbaud and then 115Kbaud, and both seem to work fine.
?Anybody know what the fastest the boarduino can handle? Please post, if so.

HTH,

Larry Pfeffer

[franklin97355]

Larry, you might want to go back and edit your links so they work.

[westfw]

clean the flux off, before you forget. Isopropyl aclohol works well,

Most soldering fluxes don't need to be cleaned off except under exceptional conditions. That's especially true of the flux that isopropyl works on (rosin).