We need your help and feedback to make the guide better. Please tell me everything, especially the bad things.
There is quite some work to do on the guide (i.e. expand Chapter 6) and we are aware of that … all additional suggestions are welcome!
I apologize for not being active enough on the forum for the past couple of days. I can hear all your support requests and will answer all of them ASAP. Please have mercy upon our souls, besides editing the build guide, we are moving our whole company to a new workspace so everything’s in chaos over here
It’s pretty late in my time zone, I have to take a nap.
Love,
Albert from the MAKERbuino team
After having just finished building my Makerbuino a few days ago using this guide, I wanted to say that the guide is really well done! Really clear instructions, even for somebody without experience soldering like me. I only have a few minor suggestions:
I was curious at first about the battery charger and whether the LED would change when it was fully charged. After charging it seems pretty clear that it lights up red when charging and blue when charged, but it was something I wanted to know, and might be useful for debugging if something goes wrong with the charging circuit.
The 16 MHz crystal had different text on it than the one in the picture. Since there is no other component like it, this isn’t a huge problem, but it might make people more comfortable if there’s a brief mention that the text on it may be different.
I also had a few questions about things I have been curious about but didn’t know where to ask:
The very early versions of the Makerbuino kits had square buttons, but they have been round for a long time. Why did you switch to round buttons? I thought the square ones looked cool, so I have been really curious as to why it changed.
Why did the screen switch from being soldered down to having a soldered socket that it plugged into, and then back to being soldered down again? That was my impression of the sequence of events, and I was just curious why you switched back, if that’s what happened.
I bought an I2C cable to connect my Makerbuino to my Gamebuino, but I didn’t check the port first. The plastic on the cable I bought didn’t fit and I had to cut it down to size. Is there any sort of standard for what kind of I2C socket the Makerbuino has?
Thanks for the great kit and great guide. I had a lot of fun putting it together.
Thanks for the info. I managed to connect the Makerbuino and Gamebuino together and play some 2-player games with no issues, but they both shared the same problem that the cables I bought had bits of plastic that stuck out and made the connector too big. I had bought a few I2C cables at a local store so I wouldn’t have to wait for shipping, but I didn’t think about any possible incompatibility. Fortunately, the spacing of the holes in the cable’s connector was the same, so trimming off the plastic solved the problem.
Yes, it is the standard 1/10 inch spacing you find everywhere. I2C is just 2 wires + ground and power, so any wire would make it. The plastic is just here to keep it connected, and the extra plastic you removed is to prevent wrong connections, provided the pins are wired in a predefines order.
The other problem with I2C (like SPI) is that is is officially made for being used on a board, or inter-connecting boards close to each other. Do not use a 1m long cable, it will be subject to interferences. you’ll break nothing, but it will work very hardly.
Gamebuino and Makerbuino work fine together, they use the same software.
Its destroyed, basically. I had no practice with the soldering iron. The tip kept getting oxidised, I had no flux and only lead-free solder. I think I must have applied too much heat - I melted the plastic in the SD slot and destroyed the pads underneath.
I only realised this after finishing the rest of the build though. It turns on but it cant flash.
I know its my fault, I shouldn’t have tried such a complex project with no experience. Still though, having a complex, delicate surface mount component as the very first step in the guide is not particularly friendly to those with little or no soldering experience. I feel much less confident at the idea of soldering anything after this to be honest.
@George_Weller, thank you for supporting MAKERbuino and I am sorry for the problems that you’re experiencing.
I am sorry that you had trouble soldering the SD socket. We’ve chosen the biggest SD socket available on the market for our kit ion order to make it as easy to solder as possible.
We’ll look into pre-soldering this part on our future kit iterations.
Please, send you circuit board to us and i’ll fix your kit and get it returned to you:
CircuitMess,
Maksimilijana Vrhovca 11,
47000 Karlovac,
Croatia
Oh wow, that would be great thanks! Please do bill me for your time and for return postage.
The instructions are at least very clear. Its my lack of experience at fault here, and the rest of the board works fine! Pre-soldering that part for future makers sounds like a great idea.
Hi Albert! I’ve been trying all day to download the new guild guide, but it looks like the link is dead. Is there another way to download it? Thanks in advance!
