Made my own version of Arduboy, from breadboard to printed circuit board!

Things used in this project

Hardware components
	Arduino Micro & Genuino Micro  One PCB board come from wellcircuits

Story

A few months ago I came across Arduboy which according to its official website is a miniature 8-bit game platform that makes it easy to learn, share and play games online. It is an open source platform. The games for the Arduboy are made by the users. Arduboy is based around ATmega32u4 which is the same microcontroller used in Arduino Pro Micro. Although I am not yet capable of making games, I decided to make build the hardware part of it on a PCB board. And yes, it worked! Thanks to MrBlinky for creating Homemade Arduboy Package. The hard work was already done.

I had a lot of fun playing some retro games on it. But the breadboard is a bit clumsy with wires running all over. I always wanted to try PCB designing and get it fabricated professionally. So, this is the right time to do it. Also, this is a perfect project as we have to concentrate on PCB design only. In this tutorials, we will make our own version of Arduboy, from circuit diagram to the circuit board!

Let’s get started!

Step 1: Things You Will Need


1x Arduino Pro Micro (5V)

1x OLED Display (SPI)

6x Tactile Push Button

1x Piezo Speaker

1x Common Anode RGB LED

Step 2: Testing on a Breadboard

Gather all the required components and start connecting them on the breadboard as shown in the circuit diagram.

The connections are as follows:

Control Keys:

UP – A0

DOWN – A3

RIGHT – A1

LEFT – A2

A – D7

B – D8

OLED Display:

SCL – D15

SDA – D16

DC – D4

RES – D2

Speaker:

SPEAKER + – D5

SPEAKER – – D6

RGB LED:

RED – D10

GREEN – D3

BLUE – D9

Step 3: Uploading Games to Arduino

There are few steps to be followed before you can upload any games on the Arduino.

• Open Arduino IDE > File > Preferences

• Copy and paste the URL below in Additional Boards Manager URL text box and click on OK.

• Go to Tools > Boards > Boards Manager.

• In text box type homemade or Arduboy homemade.

• Select Arduboy Homemade package and click Install.

After installing the library, go to Tools menu and make the selection as follows:

• Board: Homemade Arduboy

• Bootloader: Cathy3K

• Based on: SparkFun Pro Micro 5V – Alternate Wiring

• Core: Arduboy optimized core

• Display: SSD1306

Open up the.ino file and hit upload.

Step 4: Designing PCB in PCB design software

Step 5: Assembling Your PCB

I ordered the PCBs from wellcircuits and all the required components from DIGKEY. This saves on shipping cost as both the orders are shipped together. Keep your circuit diagram ready and start soldering the components as per the silkscreen marking. While soldering SMD components, make sure you use a lot of flux as it makes soldering tiny pins a lot easier. It was my first time soldering SMD components and the soldering job looks pretty good.