Last month I attended Maker Faire Atlanta with other Atlanta Hams where I helped teach kids how to build a very basic circuit with an attention-getting LED. I blogged about that here.
I wanted to salvage that mini breadboard and I had some Adafruit Perma-Proto PCBs that were looking lonely, so I moved all everything over and soldered it into place. It turned out pretty well, but I wasn’t so sure by the time I had arrived to the end.
I started by placing the 555 timer directly in the center of the board instead of counting out my spacing to ensure I’d h ave enough room the way everything was laid out. As it turns out, I did, but I was right on the edge of the board when I soldered the capacitor on. Had I started one space closer to the edge of the board, I wouldn’t have had enough room.
You can see the finished product posted on Vine:
Also, in case you’re wondering, I decided to cut a small piece of cardboard to shape and mount it on the back of the board to prevent any possibility of shorting out any connections. I secured the cardboard to the backside of the PCB by driving staples through the holes and crimping it on the back of the cardboard. Pretty slick if I do say so myself. 😉