So today I received my Spencer and decided right on to get onto it. Even though I have zero prior experience with soldering, in a just a couple hours Spencer was ready for Circuitblocks. Great packaging, solid instructions, generally an interesting experience, recommended for any age. (Im 26)
A few notes
Soldering pen - [I have the one with the blue light and manual button] I initially connected it to my laptop (through a USB hub) but while soldering I would notice, probably because the iron was not heated enough, that a small quantity of soldering tended to accumulate on the needle, thus making the iron unusable - I had to regularly use a knife to clean the needle of the soldering. At the end I used a 40W iron I had from my Father’s lab and everything went smoothy from that point. Maybe if I had connected it directly to a power supply it would be enough.
Big red button - If you turn or flip Spencer, the button will fall off. A workaround I found was using a little bit of superglue with a stick and now its solid.
Circuitblocks App - [Installed on a Mac OS Catalina 10.15.7] Installation was stuck while on Arduino installation, forced closed the app and it ended up finishing smoothy.
Spencer is not available yet in the projects, so I just changed the settings on the top right corner. Added the SSID and the password, but unfortunately Spencer hasn’t connected and neither does anything when I press the red button.
The light panel is working normally, though the red light is inoperative when I press the red button.
Any solution on how to make Spencer work?
Also, what does the small button do on the back? Is it like a forced restart or reset?
Thanks,
Paul
Update: Spencer lights after 10 minutes of use stuck in a shape, decided to remove the power cable and re-insert and now it doesn’t start at all…
I resolded the Capacitors, checked and then did the same with every other soldable object but to no avail. I will bring a polymeter by next week along with a friend who is a Techie to see what happened.
Maybe the system short circuited as soon as I took off the power cable to reset it?
Update No3 - I fixed the problem by connecting Spencer to the USB and click restore firmware… and spencer was alive again. Interesting to see that this was a firmware malfunction after I had entered my Wifi details. Red light works as well.
Now the original problem still stands though - spencer is active, have inserted the WiFi details but neither pressing the button does anything neither there is no response from Circuitblocks for connecting spencer to WiFi.
Hello Albert I have a similar problem with Mac Mojave, I send image and a video to contact@circuitmess.com. The problem is CircuitBlocks app please help me
I found that the temp. of the soldering iron wasn’t hot enough to properly solder.
The big red button isn’t fix at all.
I couldn’t get the 64bit Circuitblocks app running (on Win 10), needed to switch to 32 bit.
and most importantly: Spencer stopped to react on button presses:
When I finished the assembly and got the 32bit app running, I could successfully connect to the WiFi and interact with Spencer. Button press --> command --> answer, all worked (although with a lot of lag, sometimes it took him 3-5sec to respond). However, when I turned him off and later on again, he complained that he couldn’t connect to the WiFi (possibly because I went to another room farther away from the router). So I opened CIrcuitblocks again and entered details of another WiFi with stronger signal there but he didn’t connect. Ever since, pressing the red button doesn’t do anything.
I tried to power him on/off a couple of times, switches back to the old spot & WiFi, restored the firmware, pressed the reset button, nothing works. The LEDs are on and showing all kinds of patterns, I hear his voice when I turn him on but nothing happens when the red button is pressed. I also can no longer change his settings in Circuitblocks, only when I restore the firmware.
Please let me know what I can do to “reanimate” him?
Hi,
I finally got some time to put spencer together, I was going to make it a family thing but I could not see my 12 year old doing this for his first soldering project with what was included.
Here is my 2 cents:
Great idea
Soldering gun is junk, it would not get the pads on the board hot enough to accept solder. Finally after a half hour trying, I went and got my Weller. Since then everything was much better.
Because of number 3, I would have move a couple of the items on the board further away from the ic’s and traces. When I was trying with the included pen, I thought I was going to damage the board by continuously trying.
Spencer is extremely slow, now I see why the RGB leds were abandoned.
After Spencer is on for a little bit, he becomes unresponsive.(I think restoring the firmware helped with this.)
Button doesn’t stay on.
For the time he has been out. I would have thought there would be more sample code on your site.
I think you did a very good job on the acrylic. It is much better then other projects I have done.
Maybe my expectation was too great, but what I thought would have been a learning experience for my kids will just be an object on my desk that will get dusty over time. I am trying to justify the cost with the final product.
I am only posting, because I would really love to see the next one hit it out of the park.