Building the KIM Uno

Building the KIM Uno is not difficult. Solder 24 pushbuttons on the front side and 11
resistors on the back side of the PCB. Then, solder the 2 LED blocks (front) and the
Arduino Pro Mini itself (on the back).

KIM Uno: front side KIM Uno: back side

But there is one thing that requires special attention:

The Arduino Pro Mini is soldered on the back of the PCB, straight behind one of the LED
blocks. The pins of these components get blocked by each other. To avoid soldering
yourself into a corner you cannot get out of, you have to solder them in the right
sequence.

If you do not solder the Arduino pin headers first, then the LED and only then
the Arduino itself on to its headers, in this exact sequence, you can't reach
some solder points anymore.

General note on soldering: Some builders mention they find soldering hard to do. The solder does not flow, they
have to almost stick the solder blob to the solder points. Thats an indication you are using cheap/bad solder.
Quality really matters with solder. I am not the expert, but if your solder does not flow smoothly to where it is
supposed to go, consider buying good solder. I am happy with Stannol HS10 0.5mm diameter wire not claiming to
be an expert though. But dont go with cheap solder, itll ruin your day and your board.
1. Check the Arduino Pro Mini
Before you start soldering the KIM Uno board, check if the
Arduino actually works. That can be done because the KIM
Uno software runs fine on the 'naked' Arduino, without the
PCB attached.

If you got the Pro Mini with the connector pins already
soldered on to it, then its already programmed. Skip to
section 1.b. Otherwise:

a. To program a new Pro Mini, youll first have to solder the Serial/Programming
connector, so it looks like in the picture. Solder the angled 6-pin header on top of
the Pro Mini, not upside down.

Make sure the pin header sits straight on the Pro Mini
and makes a 90 degree angle. If you solder it slightly
crooked, it'll be a problem later on or at least look bad.
The easiest way to get a clean 90 degree fit: first only
solder the top pin more or less straight. Then, pinch
the board and the header's plastic bit whilst re-heating
the pin, itll snap into the right position. Now solder
the other 5 pins.

Using a TTL-Serial-to-USB cable, you can program the Arduino. In the Arduino IDE,
use Tools Board "Arduino Pro or Pro Mini (5V, 16Mhz) w/ atMega328". As these
cables often do not come with documentation, heres a picture of how to match the
colours to the Pro Minis pins. Black is GND, red is +5V, green is TX, connected to the
Arduinos RX, white is RX, connected to the Arduinos TX.

b. Check if the Arduino works OK: use the cable to power up the Pro Mini again, and
check that it talks to you over the TTL serial port. Use putty or some such terminal
program on 9600bps, no handshaking. You should see a constantly refreshed row of
6 zeros. Hit TAB, and you should see the KIM's serial command line.
2. Soldering the 24 buttons
These are standard no-frills "PCB Tactile Switches", 6x6mm.
They have 4 curved pins that are designed to click into PCBs, so
they fit snugly before even soldering them. That is nice in
theory, but it does mean that you have to do some fidgeting to
get them in to the board at all.

a. I found it best to marginally bend the right-hand side pins out, so they fall more
easily into the PCB holes. Marginally means 0.25mm or so, hardly visible. The button
pins then still need some fidgeting to "find" the PCB holes.

Once the 4 pins have all "found" their PCB holes, you have to press (first softly, then
quite hard) to push them all the way into the board until their bottoms hit the PCB.
Hard pressing is best done on the four small black dots on the corners of the
switches.

Mounting the keys works best if you first press the top two legs in a little bit, then
press in the bottom two a bit further, then the top again, and so on.

After they are all snugly seated on the PCB, you can still move them a little bit,
bending their pins a bit in the process. That sounds crude, but it is important
because they all get in slightly differently, and it will look much nicer if all buttons
are arranged in neat straight rows on the PCB. So yes,
move them into line with a bit of force.

b. Once the buttons are all in and look neatly aligned

(flat on the PCB, and in neat straight rows), solder
them all in one go.
3. The 11 resistors
a. 8 resistors are used to limit the current through the
segment LEDs. Their value should be 1K ohm, which is
bright enough but limits the current to what an Arduino
can comfortably deliver. The precise value is important.
You can use 1.2K ohm, but the LEDs will not be quite
bright enough for KIM-1 coding in direct sunlight

a.1: first 6 1Kohm resistors a.2 the 2 in-between 1Ks b.1 the 3 2K resistors, blue

Remember: the resistors go onto the back side of the PCB!

Start with six of the 1K resistors shown on picture a.1, and

snip off the long leads so you can comfortably solder the
remaining two 1K resistors in-between.

1. 3 resistors limit the current that goes into the keyboard scanning. Their precise value
is much less important, any value between 2K ohm and 4.7K ohm is fine, it does not
matter very much. In the picture I used blue resistors to recognise them easily.
4. Pin headers for the Arduino Pro Mini

Again, a warning: do not yet solder on the Arduino

itself in this step. Just the headers onto which the
Arduino itself will later be soldered.

The Arduino comes in a 24 pin DIP package, with 4 extra pins added inside the two main
rows of 12 pins. The best way to ensure a trouble-free fit:

a. Place the pin headers (the 2 twelve-pin strips,

plus 2 times a double-pin strip) into the KIM Uno
board, then place the Arduino on top to force all
the pins into the exact right position.

b. Now solder the headers to the board but

(warning again) do not solder the Arduino itself
onto the pins.

c. Instead, remove the Arduino at the end of this.

Note: there are a few different variants of the Pro Mini. As you can see in the picture
above, this one has two times an extra 2-pin headers on the inside of the right-hand
header row.
The top two, shown in bright/gold colour, are used in the KIM Uno and they
need to be present.
The bottom two, in the red circle, are actually unused. So you may (a) leave
those pins out completely, dont bother soldering the pin header, or (b) use a Pro
Mini variant that does not have those two pins at all. These two pins are A6 and
A7, analog input pins. The only reason to connect them is if you plan some other
hardware project that has a use for them. They are brought out onto the KIM
Uno expansion connector for only that reason.
5. The Segment LED blocks
These are standard '3461BS' 4-digit LED blocks.

a. Solder both of them into the board, checking

that:

they fit neatly aligned next to each other. Ideally, they should sit tightly next
to each other so they look like one continuous row of digits. Maybe use some
sticky tape to hold them together neatly whilst soldering.

the decimal points are indeed at the bottom.

b. Note that one LED pin row needs to be

soldered in-between the pin rows for the
Arduino on the other side! That's why doing
this in the right sequence is important. Had
the Arduino already been soldered onto its
headers already, youd be out of luck.

c. After soldering, carefully snip off the excess

leads from the LED pins. That avoid shorts
when the Arduino is mounted on the back
side of the board.
6. Solder the Arduino Pro Mini
a. Check that before doing this, you have indeed already soldered the connector
header (the 6-pin angled header) on to the Arduino.

b. Solder the Pro Mini to its pin headers. If you soldered the header strips to the PCB
with the Pro Mini loosely fitted on top in the previous step, you'll have a perfect fit
and the Pro Mini will just slip in. Press it to sit flush on the PCB.

c. The four special pins below the top row look tricky to solder, because they are very
close to some components on the Pro Mini board itself. Have a steady hand, and a
small solder tip on your soldering iron. It turns out to be much less tricky than it
looks. As explained on the previous page, the pair in the yellow circle can also be left
out if you wish. Theyre not doing anything in the KIM Uno.

d. You could clip off any excess length from the pin headers. But leaving them provides
a bit of protection to the Pro Mini's delicate surface. Secondly, you may want to
connect something to the pins at some point.

Note: if you want to make the Mini Pro removable, you could use a male pin header strip
on the PCB, and a female pin header strip on the Mini Pro. In that case, use low-profile
headers or it will look bulky. You've got to wonder, though, if a removable Arduino is
worth it for a $2.59 part.
7. Power connectors
By default, you use the TTL-Serial-to-USB cable, or any other 5V power source on the
connector pins marked VCC and GND (red and black wires, see picture below).

But in the second batch of KIM Uno boards, the one you have, a small strip of board is
added above the segment LEDs. It has optional connectors for +5V and +9V batteries,
plus slots for two on/off switches.

Other power options:

- The expansion connector can also be used to hook up the 5V power leads.

- Arduinos are not picky. Using 3 AA batteries to supply 4.5V is fine too. Cheap battery
boxes with an on/off switch fit perfectly underneath.

- Any power source between 6.5V-12V can be connected to the 9V connector. The
Arduino has a voltage regulator on board.

8. Testing
Power on the KIM Uno and the LEDs should light up within a second or so with a row of
six zeros. On the 9600bp serial port, you should see the same six zeros, constantly
refreshed.

Closing notes:
- the serial port is TTL level. Meaning it uses 5V signals. Do not
connect a normal RS-232 cable, as it will deliver + and -12V. To
get to RS-232 levels, use a TTL-to-RS232 converter.

- standard TTL-Serial-to-USB cables come in two varieties: 4 pin

and 6 pin. I don't really know about the 6-pin ones. They are
preferable because they deliver an automatic reset when
reprogramming the Arduino. On the 4-pin ones, you need to
press the reset button when reprogramming and release it at just
the right moment. See the web site for details, but it does not
bother me at least.

- Pinout for the 4-wire TTL-Serial-to-USB cables, note the colour

coding:
Black=GND, Red=+5V,
Green=Computers TX going in to Arduinos RX,
white = RX going into TX.
Appendix: the Z34 enclosure
The text below is preliminary. I only just found a reliable source for this box, so its kind
of new. This is how it is intended to be:

Youll need a side cutter to

clip off some screw mounts
that are in the way:

1. Top shell (to the left

in the picture):
Clip off entirely the 4
screw mounts in
each corner

2. Bottom shell (to the

right in the picture):
Clip off the screw
mount in the top left corner of the bottom shell, because the 9V battery needs
that space.
The low-profile (smaller) screw mount in the top left corner of the bottom shell
also needs to go for the same reason.
Then, my suggestion is to clip off about 6mm of the 2 screw mounts at the
bottom. That makes them sink into the case a bit, and you can use small self-
tapping screws to mount the KIM Uno onto them. The screw mounts do not align
perfectly with the screw holes in the KIM Uno, but itll fit anyway. As you see in
the picture.

Two more steps:

3. Use spacers to support the KIM Unos upper half (i.e., give the
Uno two upper legs to stand on). You could screw them into the
case, but I preferred not to. Matter of personal preference. For
Googling purposes: I used Threaded Stand-Off Hex Screw Pillars M3 x 8mm.
But a bolt-with-nuts will do as well.

4. Lastly, you need to create a slot in the case to be able to plug in a serial
connector. I suggest drilling two round holes, and then to use the side cutter to
clear the plastic between them.