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Happy Rain Cloud

A fun learn-to-solder kit and first circuit board layout

alpenglow-industriesAlpenglow Industries
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It's a Happy Rain Cloud! This was Robyn's first circuit board design, and first time using KiCad. It rains rainbows with self-flashing LEDs. :) Great for all ages.

Blinky.pdf

Happy Rain Cloud schematic!

Adobe Portable Document Format - 107.74 kB - 02/26/2021 at 22:00

Preview

RainCloud.zip

Full Kicad files

x-zip-compressed - 1.80 MB - 02/26/2021 at 21:30

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  • The 3 phases of the board

    Robyn W • 02/25/2021 at 19:36 • 0 comments

    Here is a photo of the 3 phases the board went through to get to the final design!

  • Silk Screen Change

    Robyn W • 01/27/2021 at 23:17 • 0 comments

    I wanted the whole cloud to be filled in, not just the outline so I changed it from this...

    To this!

    When we got them back from the board house the silk screen wasn't great so the final draft was importing this version, inverting it and making everything outside of it the silk screen.

  • Rain cloud Image

    Robyn W • 01/27/2021 at 22:29 • 0 comments

    So at first I wanted to make an umbrella with raindrops under it. Unfortunately I couldn't find any open source clip art of an umbrella that I liked and I'm not the best at drawing so trying to draw my own wasn't realistic. That is how I landed on the cloud. I found the image of the cloud and of the raindrops separately and sized them and put them together on paint.

    We went from that to this trying to get the raindrops to be the right size to fit the LEDs comfortably inside.

View all 3 project logs

  • 1
    Start with the switch!

    The design on this board is super simple so you can solder the components on in any order. Personally, I like to start with the switch. Be sure to not bridge any of the pads together!

    If you're having trouble keeping the board from moving when soldering you can use a piece of tape to hold the board down. Just be sure not to have the tape too close to where you are soldering your joint!

    *Note: The switch is made of metal so it gets hot when soldering. Be careful touching it during and directly after soldering!

  • 2
    Next, solder on the LEDs

    *Note: The front silkscreen shows which way the LED should be facing. The long LED leg should go through the bottom hole and the short LED leg should go through the top hole.

  • 3
    Finally the battery holder

    I made the holes for the battery holder snug so with a little pressure it should snap into place for easy soldering!

    *Note: The battery holder is made of metal so it gets hot when soldering. Be careful touching it during and directly after soldering!

        *I like to add a bit of extra solder so the clouds eyes look nice and smooth.

View all 4 instructions

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