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Step 4Soldering Tips
The two tricky parts in this project is soldering the LEDs and the switches and thats because the connect in a matrix formation.
Soldering the LEDs are a lot easier and the way you need to do this is to bend the positive lead of the LED down towards the other ones and make a column, and snip off the leads you didn't use and make the connections as low as you can get, and you do this to all of the positive leads.
Now the negative leads are connected in a column and thats make soldering tricky because the positive rows are in the way, so you will need to make a 90 degrees bend with the negative lead and make a bridge over the positive row to the next negative lead, and so on to the next LEDs.
Now because there are switches between the LEDs rows you will need to make 8 jumpers for connecting the 8 columns, the jumpers can be made from simple wire with isolation or you can use magnet wire.
The switches gives the biggest headache because they aren't soldered in a grid and thats makes it hard to connect them in a matrix form.I used a method called wire wrapping which uses a very thin isolate wire to connect points on the board. I have also added a wiring digram of the switches.
The controller circuit is simple and every one chooses how to make it so the only words of advise I will give is to bolt down the voltage regulator to the board to protect it from vibration and shock that can cause it to fall off, make a little hole in the board for the battery wire and by so creating a strain relief and the last thing is to add some pin headers for programming the micro unless you want to take out the micro every time you wish to program it.
Soldering the LEDs are a lot easier and the way you need to do this is to bend the positive lead of the LED down towards the other ones and make a column, and snip off the leads you didn't use and make the connections as low as you can get, and you do this to all of the positive leads.
Now the negative leads are connected in a column and thats make soldering tricky because the positive rows are in the way, so you will need to make a 90 degrees bend with the negative lead and make a bridge over the positive row to the next negative lead, and so on to the next LEDs.
Now because there are switches between the LEDs rows you will need to make 8 jumpers for connecting the 8 columns, the jumpers can be made from simple wire with isolation or you can use magnet wire.
The switches gives the biggest headache because they aren't soldered in a grid and thats makes it hard to connect them in a matrix form.I used a method called wire wrapping which uses a very thin isolate wire to connect points on the board. I have also added a wiring digram of the switches.
The controller circuit is simple and every one chooses how to make it so the only words of advise I will give is to bolt down the voltage regulator to the board to protect it from vibration and shock that can cause it to fall off, make a little hole in the board for the battery wire and by so creating a strain relief and the last thing is to add some pin headers for programming the micro unless you want to take out the micro every time you wish to program it.
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I will fix it as soon a possible.