Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 8-4:
he schematic
for the colour
snap game.
he construction of the game has two aspects - electrical and mechanical. he electrical is the
wiring, resistors, switches and LEDs, and the mechanical is the box and light difuser. here
are many ways of making each aspect; here I will discuss two ways to make the electrical part.
It all hinges on the sort of LED and resistor you use. Traditionally, components have been
what is known as
through-hole components.
hat is, they have wires, leads or legs that push
though holes in a board and are soldered to a copper laminate on the other side of the board.
hese components are big and bulky and thus are easy to handle. he newer sort of compo-
nents are known as
surface mount
because they are simply soldered onto the surface of a cop-
per laminate. hey are small - some say too small - so they reduce the size of the circuit.
Also, surface mount LEDs ofer latter and more even illumination than a through-hole part.
Let's look at the through-hole method of construction irst (although I recommend the sur-
face mount instead). Figure 8-5 shows the LED layout using through-hole components. his
is built on a small piece of strip board, sometimes known as
veroboard.
You might come
across this being called
BusBoard Prototype System, Vectorbord, Circbord,
or
breadboard
but not
solderless breadboard.
