• The hardware

    Hacker40406/13/2015 at 10:29 0 comments

    The hardware is simple enough to make rather quickly.

    Cut a piece of strip (vero) board to size and cut a groove down the middle. I used a Dremel like tool to cut the gap.

    Grab some right angle header pins and a dual row header. An old IDC socket like a hard drive IDE cable would do.

    Remove the second last pin from the end of each row as shown. This is to stop Vcc and ground shorting to IO pins of the Mega.

    Now cut the pins shorter as they are too long and would cover the ZIF socket pins.

    Remove the plastic strips from the pins. This takes a little patience. I ended up using a vice to hold it. then solder the whole thing to the strip board. Note the solder bridges at the ends for Vcc and ground.

    Now remove the header and check it over.

    If all good then plug it into the Arduino Mega this way up -

    Ready to go -

    My next log will have the Arduino code (still don't know what Arduino code is called).

    I already have the code done for a serial interface so I just have to port it over.