Hopefully The Follower will encourage me to overcome my fears and inhibitions and soldier/solder on.
My solution to the lack of headroom for the duino in the dartboard case was to order a brand spankin' new boarduino and assemble it without the socket, so the chip sits lower and it all fits in the case. Not only does this solve this stupid problem, it also means I have another arduino to play with while this one is busy playing darts.
I soldered the new duino to the perfboard along with all the wiring for the LEDs and the ribbon connector, and most of the grounds.
Next would be the 5v wiring from the duino. I was thinking - soldering would be so much easier with 3 arms, so anyone who hasn't gotten me a xmas present yet... hint, hint.
I am not certain that all of the connections are wire-to-wire and might be relying on the solder too much in some cases. Maybe I'll try to head down to the neighborhood hackerspace or makerspace or whatever we have here and get some advice and some help fixing some of the joints that might need fixing. I have the feeling my current board would be on the cover of "How Not to Solder Your Crappy Project."I thought about the game engine a little but haven't made much progress there.
I also picked up another cheap-ass electronic dartboard from the local sporting goods store in case I totally ruin this one, or in case I get this working and want to mass produce them (does 2 constitute a mass?). My local Target just started stocking one for $15 in case things get nutty one way or the other.
This thing has been sitting right next to me on my desk all this time, I just need to do it.
Hopefully my next post will be soon and hopefully it will report some real progress.
