Extra components
Extra components
Plastic Peeling
Before starting to screw anything together, make sure to take off the protective peeling that we mentioned earlier.
There are total of 6 layers you need to peel off, two on each plastic case.
Make sure to use your nails or a wooden pick to start with the peeling process.
Do not use anything sharp or made out of metal as it may permanently damage the protective plastic.
Remember to peel off both sides of the casings.
When it’s all done, it should look something like this.
Both protective plastics should be completely transparent. If there are any blue layers left on them, make sure to remove it completely.
Fixating the battery
If your battery is already fixated, then skip this step.
However, if your device doesn’t have the battery already attached to the casing, follow these steps.
First, you need to assemble the two bottom casing parts with 4 screws and 4 spacers.
Make sure the speaker slot is on the right side, and the battery slot on the left!
Then, peel of the paper on the double sided scotch tape.
Stick the battery on the casing like so.
Give the battery a firm push onto the casing to ensure it’s firmly stuck to the plastic casing.
Step 22 – connect the speaker
Let’s synthesize some bleeps and bloops!
You’ll have to connect the speaker with two tiny soft wires that are included in the kit.
Important: When soldering the wires to the “SPEAKER” pads on the PCB, first apply some solder to the pads, and then solder the wires to the pads.
Let’s fixate the speaker to the back side of the casing.
We recommend using a piece of insulating tape for this. Alternatively, you can use a hot glue gun or some super glue.
Extra step – the breakout header
Before turning your soldering iron off, you can solder the extra breakout header, but this is an extra and not necessary for the normal functionality of the MAKERbuino gaming device.
The breakout header will come in handy if you plan to hack/mod/customize your MAKERbuino.
Step 23 – test everything!
Now that you have everything soldered, connect the battery again, turn the tiny wheel potentiometers completely to the left (clockwise) and turn the console on.
- try dimming the screen’s backlight with the left (TR2) potentiometer
- you will have an option to adjust the contrast on your MAKERbuino, this option is disabled on most new units and the LCD screens have fixed contrast which doesn’t need adjusting
Go through the checkup wizard and check whether all buttons work properly.
After you finish the checkup wizard, the sound should be enabled. Try dimming it with the right (TR1) wheel potentiometer.
If everything’s working properly, save the settings and turn the console OFF.
Insert the SD card into the socket firmly and all the way down to the bottom of the SD socket.
Turn the console ON and press button C (upmost left button) at the main screen, the device will load games and programs stored on the SD card. You will get a loading screen.
Don’t panic, loading games from the SD card can take up to 30 seconds, be patient.
After the SD card loads, you should see a graphical game selection screen where every image represents a separate game/program.
IMPORTANT
If you turn your MAKERbuino OFF while a game is loading, its memory might be left blank and you’ll get a white screen. Fortunately, this can be fixed quite easily. You will have to do the C-button reset trick like this.
- Insert the SD card
- Turn the console OFF
- Hold the C button
- Turn the console ON
- Release the C button
- Wait for 30 seconds
- The SD card loader menu should appear