Shitty Amateur Electronics - Part 6: Entering the (LED) Matrix

While I was thinking I wouldn't get anything done during August because of my commitments at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, I ended up not being able to put everything down and just did soldering any chance I got. And I'm definitely improving, but I make mistakes through laziness. Not heating the iron up properly. Not cleaning it. Not using my board holder gadget...

...which is BRILLIANT, by the way! I no longer need three arms to do anything. Although sometimes the screws take a bit of work to get them to hold something tight. Also you have to do this while not pushing TOO hard or it may bend/break something.

Here’s the first row of LEDs attached to the board with their anodes all joined together and the cathodes bent downwards ready for joining to the ones to come below.

Then the resistors and header pins at (hopefully) the correct number of rows down... Incidentally I think this shows my soldering is improving, but some of those joints look a little empty. Obviously compensated too far the other way.

I’ve had more issues with melting plastic on jumper pins again, and I guess my iron is probably too hot. I’ll try doing the other one at a much lower temperature setting and see how it goes. Sometimes the pins can be moved back to the right height, but once you start doing that and they aren't being gripped as tightly by the plastic housing they can fall out if you aren't careful.

Despite the melting, one improvised header plug with added electrical tape later and everything seems to line up ok and plug in right. And it looks so much cooler than just a random collection of single DuPont jumper wires, haphazardly weaving in and out of each other. I'll use the same colours for each cable.

And that will do for now. First set of header pins and the resistors sorted, plus a first row of LEDs. Time to do the other rows and then the wires and then the last header plug at the end. The board is basically finished as I write this, so I'll get another post done with the story of completing all of this. Then we have to think about code...