Nanode 5

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Component List Component Legs

Front of Board Soldering Legs

Back of board Cutting Legs

 

Welcome to your Nanode 5 in kit form. You will find in your pink bag that you have a whole heap of components, a PCB and a slip of paper with an url on it that has led you here. Within a couple of hours soldering you will have a fully working Nanode 5.

If you are new to soldering and want some tips – have a look at this guide. Building a Nanode is just a case of replicating the steps shown in the following picture sequence – no real electronics experience needed – just basic soldering skills.

Tools you will need

  • Soldering iron
  • Solder
  • Solder sucker in case you make a mistake
  • Side Cutters – to cut the excess component leads off
  • Multi-meter
  • Programming cable – you can buy one from us for £5 or if you have an FTDI cable or similar you may use that.
  • Once you have built your Nanode, you will need access to a computer so you can program it with your application.

spacer Kit Layout

Here you see all the resistors, capacitors, connectors, crystals and ICs needed to make the standard build of Nanode 5.

spacer MAC Chip

You should find that the tiny MAC address IC has already been soldered in place on the back of the PCB.
We have soldered this on for you as we were worried it would get lost in the kit bag.

spacer Orientation or board

Make sure the board is the right way up. All the photographs are taken form this orientation to keep it as simple as possible. If you look closely on the board you will see that it is marked in white writing showing the position of each of the components.

spacer Resistors

We are going to start with soldering the resistors in place. Most of them form a central strip down the middle of the board (apart from one stray one when you get to step three.)

Tips: Resistor leads should be bent very close to the resistor body. To do this, hold the resistor between thumb and first-finger, and use the other hand to bend the resistor lead as tight to the body as possible. Work methodically, – it looks neater if the resistors are all inserted the same direction so that the colour code can be read easily from left to right. The resistors supplied all have a slightly separate brown band at one end. This brown band should go on the right hand side.

 

spacer Cutting

Insert each of the resistor values in turn, for example insert all five of the 10K at a time and then solder then from the back of the board, cutting off the excess leads with your side cutters as close to the board as possible.

We will work through each of the resistor values in turn. We will now solder five 10K, four 51R, three 270R, one each of 1R, 10R and the 2K.

spacer 10K Resistors

There are five 10k resistors (they should come in your kit in a strip of 5, if not, you can easily identify them as their colour coding bands are as follows: Brown Black Black Red (The last band on all resistors is Brown). Place all 5 in their position on the board then solder them in place.

spacer 51R Resistors

Next up are four 51R resistors – again they can be easily identified them from their colour coding bands which are as follows: Green Brown Black Gold. (The last band on all resistors is Brown).

spacer 270R

Now add the three 270R resistors – again they can be easily identified them from their colour coding bands which are as follows: Red, Purple, Black, Black.

Note: Two run down the centre of the board with the third one on the far right of the board as shown in the picture.

spacer 1R, 10R, and 2K

The last three resistors go in the following places.

The 1R resistor is to placed on the board where it says “ferrite”. Colour coding bands are as follows: Brown, Black, Black ,Silver

The 10R resistor’s coding bands as follows: Brown, Black, Black ,Gold

Note: The silver and gold colours look very similar in certain light conditions – if in doubt use a multimeter to check the value before you fit it.

2K is Red Black Black Brown

Note – you will see on the board there is space for other resistors, these are not needed in your Nanode 5 kits so ignore them.

spacer IC Sockets

Next we are going to solder the three IC sockets. These sockets will be where the chips sit. There are two longer ones -28 pin and one shorter one – 14 pin. You need to make sure that you solder the socket the right way round.

spacer Notches in sockets

If you look carefully at the IC socket you will see that at one end there is a small semi-circular notch molded into the black plastic. This can been seen in the photograph, the socket at the top of the photograph shows the notch end.

spacer Notches on Board

Look at the board and note the ‘notch’ symbol at one end of the IC position. I have pointed to it in the photograph. When you solder the socket, all you need to do is make sure that the notch on the board lines up with notch on the IC socket.

spacer 22pF and 10nF

Now we are going to add all the capacitors starting with those that are brown in colour. Again pay attention here as all six look the same, on closer inspection you will see that four of them are marked with the number 22 and have a flash of black paint on them. (22pF capacitors). The other two are marked with the number 103 and do not have a black flash on them. (10nF capacitors).

spacer Four 22pF

Lets start with the four 22pF capacitors (ones with the black flash). I have photographed them in close up so you are sure to get them in the correct place. Two go in the top left of the board…….

spacer 10uF

The other two fit here.

spacer Four 22pF

 

……. and the other two are situated on the right hand side of the board.

spacer Three 10uF’s

We need to solder in three 10uF’s capacitors. The first one goes next to the IC socket that runs horizontally across the board on the left-hand side, as shown in the photo.

Tip: Make sure the long leg of the capacitor goes into the hole with the plus mark on the board.

 

 

spacer Crystals

The next two components that need to be soldered to the board are the crystals. Again they look the similar but have different frequency values. One is 25MHz crystal marked 25.00SCA and the other is a16MHz crystal marked 16.00SCA

spacer 25.00SCA

Both the 25.00SCA and the 16.00SCA crystal should not be inserted so that they are flush with the top of the IC sockets. This raises them slightly off the surface of the board.

spacer 16.000SCA Crystal

The position of 16.00SCA is shown in the photograph

spacer 100nF capacitors

Now let’s add the seven 100nF capacitors, these are blue and marked 104. Note: There is a spare location for a 100nF capacitor next to pin 1 of the ATmega328 IC. Do not fit any component in this location – just the seven in the picture. Two go on the side of the board where the 25.00SCA crystal is situated and……….

spacer 100nF (cont)

…..the other five 100nF capacitors go are situated on the right-hand side of the board.

spacer Board So Far

So here is the board so far – at this point we are more than half way through the build.

spacer Six and Eight SIL Sockets

Now we need to solder in the SIL sockets or “shield” connectors. These are the flat black components, two of them have 6 ‘legs’ and the other two have 8 ‘legs’. They are referred to as 6 way and 8 way SIL sockets. In this picture you will see the 6 sil sockets in place.

Attention: Make sure you solder them to the inner line of holes, not the outer ones. Make sure they are fitted straight and vertical. Best to tack one end pin with solder whilst you hold them straight – check the alignment and then solder the remaining pins in place.

spacer Six and Eight SIL Sockets (cont)

Then solder in the eight SILL sockets in.

spacer Header for Programme Lead

Now we are going to fit the component that will allow you to plug in the programme lead so you can get information from your computer onto the chip on the Nanode. This is called also referred to as an FTDI header and is positioned to the right-hand side of the pcb. As with all your components, make sure it is straight and level.

spacer Switch

Underneath the 6 way right-angled header towards the bottom of the board is where we are going to solder the reset switch.

spacer 5V Regulator

Next is the 5V regulator, make sure you attached it the right way round with the thick black plastic bit facing into the board. The legs on this component are quite tough to cut into so use good side cutters once you have soldered in into place.

spacer Screw Terminal

Solder this to board, again make sure the screw terminal the right way round with the holes for the wires facing out away from the board.

spacer 1N4001

Fit the 1N4001 protection diode to the position on the board as shown. Note that there is a thick white line on the legend…..

spacer Attention is needed again as there is a thick white band at one e