S-AVR » Construction
Step 1: Tool-Check
You will need:
- Soldering Iron & Solder
- Sharp Knife or Scalpel
- Wire Cutters/Strippers
- Long-nose pliars
Step 2: Order the Components
You will need the following components. For readers in the UK I have included the order codes for Rapid Electronics. If you're elsewhere it probably makes sense to source the components locally - they are very common and should be easy to find. The Rapid order comes to £9.41. Then you pay delivery at £4.95 and VAT on that total, bringing it up to £16.51. Rapid will give you free delivery for orders over £30 ex VAT, so if you're short of common components it probably makes sense to stock up of a few things. You will get discounts for ordering more than five or ten. Also, this list is the bare minimum of components necessary to build the S-AVR main board. You will probably want to build some peripheral boards too (which have their own component lists), e.g the S-AVR:Serial board and the S-AVR:LED board. See other pages in this section for details.
| Rapid Order Code | Description | Quantity |
|---|---|---|
| 73-4272 | Atmel ATmega162-16PU Microcontroller | 1 |
| 90-0370 | 16MHz Crystal | 1 |
| 08-0925 | 22pF Ceramic Capacitor | 2 |
| 08-0280 | 220nF Ceramic Capacitor | 1 |
| 63-2344 | 10K 1/4W Resistor | 1 |
| 22-1730 | 40-Pin 0.6in Turned-Pin DIL Socket | 1 |
| 22-1751 | 32-Way Turned-Pin SIL Socket | 2 |
| 19-0500 | 10-Way Straight Boxed Header | 1 |
| 78-0630 | 12mm x 12mm Round Push-Switch | 1 |
| 78-0530 | 2-Pole Latching PCB Switch | 1 |
| 01-0102 | Single-Core Wire | 1 |
| 34-0515 | 95mm x 127mm Stripboard | 1 |
Step 3: Cut the Tracks!
Have a look at this picture. It is not a game of BattleShips. It is the back of a piece of veroboard (sometimes called stripboard). Before soldering any components onto the board, you will have to cut some tracks on the board. The places where tracks need to be cut are marked with white lines on the picture. Note that there are two kinds of track cut, the ones between holes, and the ones on holes. I find a hobby knife with snap-off blades works well. Be careful the blade doesn't snap and fly in your face. Be careful the blade doesn't slip - you don't want to get blood on the tracks. Be careful you don't flick bits of copper from the tracks into your eyes. Double-check the position of each track-cut before you do it.
Step 4: Solder the Jumper Wires!
Warm up that soldering iron!
The blue lines between blue blobs in the picture represent wires which should be soldered between the holes where the blue blobs are. Note that the wires should be inserted from the other side of the board. Note that at C15 you have to fit two wires into the same hole, which is a bit of a tight fit...you can use a pair of pliars to squeeze the two wires, or you can just solder one wire and then solder the other wire to it. Where the wires are shown curved (as opposed to straight) in the picture, don't solder them taut.
Step 5: Solder the Components
Note that components should be inserted from the other side of the board.
- Solder the 220nF capacitor between C7 and V5.
- Solder the DIL socket so its corners are at C3, V3, C9 and V9, with pin 1 at V9.
- Solder pins from the SIL strip:
- 21 pins between A1 and U1.
- 2 pins at F10 and G10.
- 2 pins at J10 and K10.
- 1 pin at C11.
- 1 pin at E11.
- 2 pins at D27 and E27.
- 5 pins between I27 and M27.
- Solder the 10K resistor between K18 and L18.
- Solder the 22nF capacitors:
- One between C12 and C14.
- The other between E12 and E14.
- Solder the header with its corners at L15, P15, L16 and P16, pin 1 at L15.
- The header's slot should face towards the top of the picture.
- Using pliars, remove the pin from the header corresponding to M15.
- Solder the pins at M16, N16, O16 and P16 together.
- Solder the push switch so its pins are at K19, M19, K24 and M24.
- Solder the latching switch so its corner pins are at A25, B25, A27, B27.
- Solder a black wire between A27 and E27, taking care not to short to the intervening tracks.
- Solder a wire between B27 and D27. It doesn't matter if this shorts to C27.
Step 6: Insert the MCU and Crystal
Insert the ATmega162 microcontroller in the DIL socket such that pin 1 is at V9. Crop the leads of the crystal down to 5mm so that when you insert it into the sockets at C11 and E11, there is more than 1mm of clearance. It will not work if the crystal's metal case is allowed to touch the socket.
And that's it! You have successfully constructed your S-AVR board. See the other pages in this section for how to use it.
