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Part 3 – Main board Modification

Some minor modifications to the WL500gP V2 Main board are required as part of the Aiko-Gateway Construction process.

This includes wiring in a header for the serial connection and bypassing the 3v (3.3v??) power pin, in favour of the 5v connection.

Modifying the Main Board

Through Holes for the Serial Connection	Locate the through holes for the serial connection.  The holes themselves are filled and will need to be drilled in preparation for the addition of the serial header.
Pre-punched Through Holes	Prepare the through holes for drilling. For your own safety and the for the sake of the circuit board, I’d suggest “scoring” the top of each through hole before drilling.  I used the point of a round needle files.  Don’t need to go too far, just enough so the tip of the drill bit doesn’t try to run away when you start the drill.
Drilled Through Holes	Preparation done, drill the holes
Pins Removed from Gang	Remove 4 pins from male header gang for creating the serial header.
4 Pin Female Header removed from gang	Remove 4 pins from the female header gang.  This will be used first as a spacer for help with keeping the serial header aligned while you are soldering, and later as the connector for the wiring loom. When cutting sections from the female gang, remember to cut through the next pin up from what you need.  For example in this case, cut on the 5th pin.  I found it was easier to use a pair of needle nose pliers to remove the 5th pin, and then cut through the gap created. If you wish, use a flat file to smooth off the edge of the cut.
Bent Header Pin	Bend one of the end pins in the serial header straight.  This will provide a pin we can solder to when bypassing the 3.3v connection in favour of the 5v connection.
Female Header as a spacer	Join the male and female connectors together and insert the male pins into the through holes.  I found using a piece of blue tac good for holding it all in place when you turn the board over for soldering. Now turn the board over and solder the header in place
	With the header in place, next is the power “bypass”.  This is a simple matter of soldering a wire between the “flattened” pin created earlier and the 5v rail. See the image to the left for the location to solder to.  We need to solder the wire to one side of some capacitor.

Part 2 – Router Disassembly

I realise that this post is essentially overkill, as the disassembly of the router is simple and straight forward, but for the sake of completeness, I thought I had better include it.

(continue reading…)

Introduction

Over the next few days I’m going to be outlining, in simple form, the steps required to build an Aiko-Gateway.  Once I get the whole process covered, I’ll then use it to create a more complete tutorial for the build process.  The general outline for the broad steps invloved are:

• Part 1 – Parts and tools list
• Part 2 – Router disassembly
• Part 3 – Main board modifications
• Part 4 – Wiring loom
• Part 5 – Building the Sensor board
• Part 6 – Router case modifications
• Part 7 – Installation of LCD, Touch screen,  Ardiuno Pro, Zigbee Module and Sensor board

Part 1 – Parts List

This is just a simple first post to outline the parts required for an Aiko-Gateway build.  I’ll get into more details about each part as we require them within the build process.

Major Components	ASUS Router WL500-gP V2 Arduino Pro 328 5V 16Mhz (internal to router) 5V FTDI Basic (for Arduino programming) ZigBee Series 2.5, 2.4 Ghz, 50 mW … (for internal Arduino) ZigBee Series 2.5, 2.4 Ghz, 2 mW … (for external Arduino) 2 x ZigBee explorer regulated break-out board Liquid Crystal Display, 4 rows x 16 columns Nintendo DS TouchScreen and break-out board and paper menu Temperature sensor (DS18B20) and 4.7 Kohm resistor Light sensor (LDR) and 10 Kohm resistor 1 x 40 pin Male headers (break-away, right-angle) 1 x 40 pin Female headers 13 x 3 mm (dia) / 16 mm (len) bolts and 11 x 3 mm nuts Ribbon Cable
WL500-gP V2 - Front View	ASUS WL500gP V2
LCD Screen	LCD
Nintendo DS Touchscreen and printed button sheet	Nintendo DS Touch screen
Arduino Pro, Zigbee Modules with breakouts and FTDI connector	Arduino Pro, 2 Zigbees with breakout board and FTDI adapter
Minor Components	Male and female header gangs, nuts and bolts, LDR and Temperature sensor. (It IS in there!!)